


Pizza Boy

by LynneWritesTrash



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pizza Place, Cute Dorks Accidentally Fall in Love, Depressed Keith (Voltron), Eventual Relationships, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Hunk (Voltron) is mom, Idiots in Love, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt Make a Bet, Lance (Voltron) Being an Idiot, Love/Hate, M/M, Minor Allura/Shiro (Voltron), Mistakes, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), Origami, Pidge | Katie Holt Being a Little Shit, Pidge | Katie Holt is Savage, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7921006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynneWritesTrash/pseuds/LynneWritesTrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'And there he was, leaning casually against the door frame, one arm across his chest, the other holding the pizza box like some sort of waiter, head cocked with a stupid slanted grin.<br/>As soon as he noticed the smaller boy in the doorway, he froze, eyes wide, smile falling.<br/>“You’re Keith!?"'</p><p>An incredibly lengthy Voltron fic of fluff, klangst and Lance fucking everything up (again) in, oddly, the best way he could have ever imangined. </p><p>//TRIGGER WARNING//<br/>There is talk of self harm, metal illnesses and troubling pasts so if you are triggered by these subjects, please do not read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_What is the point?_

These words hung heavy on Keith's mind as if they were branded there, singed into his red hot brain and ringing in his ears uncontrollably. He tried to chase them away but his mind had been permanently imprinted with crippling self-doubt and criticism.

Thinking back, Keith could never remember a moment where he was not unhappy; his life seemed to be a pitifully sad loop of unfortunate happenings. However, this mix of pain, fear, anger and hopelessness was not new to the 19-year-old boy as he has struggled to deal with his life with people around him and most importantly himself, his whole life.

Not a day went by that Keith didn't feel utterly hopeless and insecure; in fact, it was those insecurities that ate away at his thoughts and drained them like hungry leeches eager to drain every last ounce of blood.

Keith couldn't help but sigh for what seemed the millionth time in the last hour, he was sat alone in his tiny dorm room that to anyone else would seem practically cell like but to him, it all seemed to still be despairingly big and depressing. People weren't Keith's thing, so when it came to college accommodation, he couldn't have checked _'single room'_ any quicker.

There were many reason Keith hated people but he could never deal with closeness, conversations and all their mess and disorganisation (or even just having different placements for objects) as well as that Keith was positive that no one in their right mind would ever want to spend time living with someone who had severely debilitating depression and anxiety as well as his mental instability and complex outlook on life. His red bed sheets crumpled beneath him as he flopped meekly down on top of them. Pulling himself into a small compact ball, he nibbled at the top of his thumb as a comfort habit he never really abandoned in his childhood. His arms still tingled and stung as they moved across the rough fabric. Despite his long sleeved, over-sized, chunky-knit, fluffy jumper, his arms prickled with the indirect contact making him wince out of sheer discomfort but that discomfort was still an emotion, an emotion he could feel and pin point exactly and that felt, in an odd sort of painful way, comforting.

The red rings around his tired, lifeless eyes stood out prominently on his chalky pale skin. Anyone with eyes could see that Keith was having a rough time but all Keith thought was that he was weak, useless and had lost all hope in anything he did.

He repeatedly asked himself why he was like this, why he had to criticise every last thing, why nothing ever made sense, why nothing ever went right, why nothing was perfect.

The claustrophobic room that seemed way too big with its cream walls, white blinds, small, cramped twin beds, brown wooden desk and bookshelf with every last book and pen placed in their correct position, the tiny kitchen area with its white microwave, mini-fridge, kettle and toaster. Because the lack of students in his accommodation, every room had their own en suite which was lucky because Keith found himself breaking down in his bathroom, crying into the rug and cursing himself out in the mirror etc.

After reading one of his many _ **'HOW TO NOT FEEL LIKE A WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT'** _ books, Keith tried decorating the room to make it seem more quote-on-quote _'homely'_ but this proved problematic.

Firstly, Keith tried pinning up some of his older art work but the more he stared at them the more flaws he saw and after a while he became sick at the sight of them and hated every single one. He had tried to unstick them from the wall but the cheap off brand blu-tack ripped off the paint leaving ugly paint-less splodges across his wall.

Next, he decided to take some of his more irritating pieces down and cover the missing paint with his photos which was okay but occasionally some of the sentimental photographs sent shivers down his spine as he tried to not let the overwhelming memories flood his mind and eat away at his pathetic life.

To add to this, Keith had a box of neatly folded, colourful origami cranes that he made every time he felt unhappy. He had been making cranes as a coping strategy since he was around 4 or 5 years old. Over the years he had collected hundreds of the paper birds, possibly thousands, and one day he started threading clear string through them and hung each one from the ceiling. It took many days of stringing and hanging the delicately ornate paper before every crane was suspended in the air but once it was done it, even Keith found it a little impressive.

Despite everything, something still was not right but there was nothing logical that he could think of to make anything right.

Looking up from his ball, Keith noticed the outside world had darkened and he lost track of the time. Pulling his phone off the dresser-turned-bedside-table, the time on the screen read _10:27_.

With a groan, Keith knew he had to eat something because he hadn't eaten anything since his unsatisfyingly soggy pot-noodle at lunch. When he opened the fridge he was annoyed to realize he only had more pot noodles and milk in there. He was not prepared to eat pot noodles again today so that called for take out. He collected an assortment of money to cover the cost before he opened his phone to make an order. Keith would never ever dream of ordering over the phone, social anxiety would always get the better of him and it was useless even trying anymore. He went straight to the take out app and browsed through the assortment of fast food delivery places in the area.

Keith wasn't sure what he particularly wanted at that moment but decided pizza was the best option for possible left overs for breakfast the next morning. He typed **_'pizza'_** into the search bar and clicked the first one that popped up. It seemed a pretty good deal and not too far away so he went to order. He filled in his name, the name number and address of his student flat, and order (Keith couldn't be bothered to pay extra for any fancy toppings, especially when money was tight and he wasn't particularly hungry). His thumb scrolled the screen up so he could fill in his order. Once he typed **_'average thin margarita'_ ** he looked at the last box that read _'delivery requirements'_ and he thought hard before typing ** _'Send someone who is pretty chilled and not pissed off'_**. Usually, he skipped this box but tonight he felt horrible and didn't want some stupid angst teen who doesn't get paid enough and hates their job to make it any worse. He sent the request and a few moments after his phone buzzed indicating the pizza place had successfully received his order.

It took Keith a good moment for him to gather enough strength to pull himself out of bed and sluggishly make his way over to the bathroom. Although the idea of having your own bathroom sounds lucky, it really wasn't much to brag about due to its size. Good job Keith was small, thin and agile otherwise moving in there would prove itself quite a task.

Mirrors, Keith hated the things, they only reminded him how rough and horrible he looked all the time, but there was no escaping them, especially in a bathroom. He studied his face carefully, pulling at his weary skin. His eyes were burning but dry as a summer desert, they were red and bloodshot and this was highlighted and exaggerated by the deep purple bags formed under his eyes, his skin was dull and greying slightly as if all the blood had been drained from his body and his young skin seemed droop miserably from his thin framed face. To see how it looked, he smiled at himself but it just looked wrong and forced and ugly so he let it fall back to his permanent disapproving frown.

His longish black hair was greasy and messy; it hadn't been straightened or brushed or tamed or anything in a few days so he yanked at every thick strand pulling it into a messy half up half down kind of pony tail due to the shorter straggly hairs that would only come loose if he tried to put them up.

Without thinking, he turned on a tap and rolled his sleeves up so he could proceed splash his face pathetically with freezing water in a strained attempt to look 'Presentable'. He looked down at his exposed arms and sighed. Every freshly red or still searing white line that plagued his skin was a constant reminder of how much he hated himself.

Suddenly his door phone started ringing. He pushed the sleeves down quickly in a panicked state and ran to pick it up.

"H-hello?" Keith mumbled.

"Well, hello there" the voice almost beamed coolly down the phone and he fact Keith could hear the smug almost cockiness in the guy's voice made him feel so done already. "It appears I have a pizza for a Keith?"

"Sounds right" Keith sneered down the phone trying to match the other's confidence and sarcasm.

"Sooo... you gonna come down orrr-?" The guy seemed to be kidding, or at least Keith hoped he had been anyway.

"Oh right yeah, I'll be right there hang on" He grabbed his phone, keys and the exact change off the side and bolted it for the stairs. He could have taken the elevator from the 7th floor down but his fear of getting trapped in one was too much to risk plus 14 short flights of stairs were merely nothing not that he was used to it. It took about 3 or 4 minutes for him to reach the downstairs corridor but when he did, he yanked open letting the strong November night breeze lick his exposed skin.

And there he was, leaning casually against the door frame, one arm across his chest, the other holding the pizza box like some sort of waiter, head cocked with a stupid slanted grin. As soon as he noticed the smaller boy in the doorway, he froze, eyes wide, smile falling.

_"You're Keith!?"_


	2. Chapter 2

Lance was never too keen on the idea of being a part-time pizza delivery guy, but after his parents made it incredibly clear that they would not be paying off all their 6 children's student loads he was left with very few options.

At first, he thought he would despise the job but it was the first of 4 interviews that he had successfully receive a job offer from and he was desperate, like, really desperate. Lance decided not to dwell on the negatives and instead he focused on the perks:

he met a few of his first college friends either by working with them he or delivering to them; he practically knew the town like the back of his hand now which meant he could ditch the beaten up silver company car, that smelt like one too many shots of vodka and piss with that stupid GPS was so quiet no one could hear it's mumbled commands, and take the delivery bike instead -which he much preferred-; he had some great stories and experiences (from the crazy woman who threw her shoes at him to the time he had to go to the edge of a creepy forest and was pretty sure he'd get killed by a bear); the fact he got paid, even if it wasn't a lot, to sit on his phone or drive around the town back and forth from Paladin Palace Pizza, he usually got invited to parties that he delivered too after his shift which was great because Lance lived a very social life; and finally, probably the best and most important thing, the staff usually got free leftover pizza, which for Lance was a life saver due to the fact he still struggled to pay off any of his bills.

Today was going to be a good day, there was something Lance could just sense in the air as he strolled off the university campus with the bitter breeze rubbing his cheeks and nose rosy. He couldn't pinpoint exactly why it was going to be a good day but there was something in his head telling him he should be smiling- so he was.

Lance almost floated to work as his feet rarely hit the path which only illuminated his great mood. He decided to walk the route through the park as fall was steadily transforming to winter. With a tug at his loosened scarf that hung lazily draped across his kind of bony shoulders, he made his way through the lines of trees. The crumpling and rustling of the dead leaves, that paraded an assortment of every autumnal shade, added to the occasional street sounds on the other side of the now nearly bare trees. The walk from the campus to Paladin Palace usually only took 15 minutes tops but taking the path through the park added and additional 5 to 10 minutes but when the sun was out and there was no rush to be early, Lance though it was nice to go a more pleasant way. The uneven gravel path added to the crunching noise beneath his feet that made it still audible over the music baring out of Lance's bright blue earphones.

It wasn't long before he arrived outside the front of the takeout stop, but when he did he saw a familiar face stood behind the counter, presumably alone. The guy was one of Lance's good friends, Hunk, whom he had met the first day he arrived at the university. Hunk was his roommate and when Lance opened the door to their room for the first time, he was greeted by the large friendly man with an even larger smile and tight hug, he was so excited Lance thought maybe Hunk didn't know how to use punctuation in his speech at all. Hunk was actually also one of the reasons he found, got and worked the delivery job.

"Hey Hunk!" he called cheerfully opening the glass door

"Chirpy today, Lance?" Hank chuckled back as him from behind cash register.

"Yep, must've woken up on the right side of the bed this morning" Lance smiled on of his lopsided smirks "easy lessons, no homework, almost the holidays- It's been a great day!"

"Good for you." Hunk felt Lace's contagious smile spreading to him and he gave the thought a little laugh. Lance pushed the handle to the staff room's entrance vigorously "You see Pidge on your way by any chance?"

"Nope, no sign, sorry." Lance shouted through the closing door. He walked the corridor until he got to the locker room where he got his uniform out, he took off his jacket and scarf and changed out of his plain white t-shirt to the almost neon pale blue polo shirt with the little embroidered pizza logo on the left collar. He took the ugly baseball cap of the same fluorescent colour and brushed the locker dust off it before placing it on his head and pushing it back slightly so it didn't completely squash his hair. He slipped the considerably less-bright blue and zip hoodie back on making sure to put his phone and keys in the pockets of his greyish black skinny jeans.

As he cracked the door to the confined locker room back open he almost hit someone as they nearly speed walked past.

"OH MY GOODNESS!" The shrill voice shrieked as the girl standing in front of Lance stopped dead in her tracks "Altea, Lance, you could have killed me!" she snapped, firmly placing her tiny hands on her hips. The attractive girl that was now angrily glaring at him was Allura (the daughter of Alfor, the owner of Paladin Palace) and she was no-doubted one of the one of the most stunning people on the planet with her perfect tanned skin, sparkling teal eyes and long, silky silver-violet waves of hair and it was no surprize that she was dating the equally as stunning, Shiro, who was well built, with his perfect smile and hair and muscles. They truly were a very attractive couple.

"Oh sorry, Allura, you trying to find Shiro?" Lance said softly (for once) knowing from past experiences that getting annoyed at or correcting Allura usually ended badly.

"Oh, no I was getting something for my dad. Shiro's talking to Pidge and Hunk out front, we just got here" She relaxed, smiling now.

She always dressed beautifully, today she wore a white loose off-shoulder crop top with a pastel purple flowy skirt cut just below her knees with silver accessories and brown and lavender wedge heel open toe shoes that exposed her matching violet nails.

"Okay I better join them out there then, see you in a bit"

"Okay Lance, I'll speak to you later." she giggled with a subtle hair flip as she moved past him politely to get to the head office.

Lance made his way out to the front desk when Hunk was already heading to the kitchen to join the other cook, Coran, who was set to arrive any time before his shift at 5pm. Everyone had their own part to do at P.P.P., Shiro took orders at the cash register and helped Pidge man the phones as Pidge handled the online and phone orders, on slow days Hunk, Coran or Lance would help if there wasn't much to do but Coran and Hunk generally stayed in the Kitchen while Lance was usually delivering or waiting to deliver. Alfor sometimes would help out when he had time but that was rare. Allura had never worked for P.P.P. but she did spend a lot of her time in there whether she sat and watched, sat and sketched, sat and read, she was usually in the background somewhere.

Once the orders started flying in, everything started to pick up quickly. Lance zipped all across the town dropping off and collecting pizzas. At 7, Lance dropped 5 large pizzas off at a frat house party where he was certain they were going to just end up eating the pizza at breakfast when everyone too was hungover and tired to make actual breakfast. At 9, he has to keep driving up and down residential streets in search of a somewhat impossible to find house that belong to a surprisingly nice elderly couple who tipped him incredibly generously which he felt bad accepting because he reached their house so late.

At 10:36, Lance got back to the small pizzeria for his last delivery. P.P.P. stopped taking delivery orders after 10:30 so Lance probably had one possibly two pizzas left to deliver. To his luck there was only one order to go and when Lance walked in he was met by giggles from Pidge and Hunk who were leaning next to the ovens and talking.

"Hey guys" Lance said in a smooth, calm voice.

"Yo Lance?" Pidge piped up with a smirk "You still in that good mood?"

"Um I guess?" He replied, cocking his head inquisitively. The response gained a held back chuckle from Hunk and one of Pidge's notoriously sly scheming faces

"Perfect." Pidge practically cooed like a pigeon, or maybe it should have been like a Pidgeon.

"What?"

"Well, you see this order wants someone who isn't pissed and is relatively cheerful, and today, you seem to be both" Hunk nudged Lance in the side pushing his lanky body slightly. Lance raised an eyebrow in response with a smirk spreading across his cheek.

"Oh? Do you think it's hot chick then?" Lance inquired, suddenly interested. he folded his arms only imagining a cute little lady in need of an attractive pizza delivery guy to come to her rescue.

"uh- no- um" Hunk said through a few head shakes and held back giggles.

"Says here, he's called Keith" Pidge read off the print out delivery form.

"Oh." Lance sighed slightly disappointedly.

"Well, maybe you could get yourself a cute boyfriend" This line from Pidge made him and Hunk burst out laughing hysterically. Lance was only slightly annoyed the remark and let it blow over.

"Yeah no- nobody has a cute boyfriend with the name Keith" He sniggered unapologetically, the others only joined in. Hunk then stopped to continue cooking.

"Lance, I have an idea." Pidge said in a somewhat worryingly evil tone.

"Oh yeah?" Lance challenged raising an eyebrow

"I bet you $50 that you couldn't get this 'Keith' kid to go on a single date with you"

"What!? Dude, I could pull _anyone_ I ask, you're going to need $50 handy, my dear Pidge-ums" he stared down at Pidge arms still folded eyebrow still raised.

"Is that so, if I remember correctly didn't you try asking both Allura AND Shi-"

"don't.bring.that.up.i.swear.pidge.i.will-" Lance glared at the small figure.

"50 bucks says you can't get this Keith to go on one date with you by January 1st, deal?" Pidge held out a hand evilly. Lance gave the thought quick once over but decided $50 from Pidge would probably come in handy.

"Oh, it is on!" Lance said slowly with a determined smirk taking the hand and shaking it.

"Hey, Pizza's ready, Lance" Hunk looked over and saw the hand shake and the equally evil glint in both of their eyes. "Oh sweat Altea, what have you two done _now_!?"


	3. Chapter 3

“I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT I LEFT YOU FOR LITERALLY TWO MINUTES AND YOU’VE DONE _THIS_!!” Hunk shouted disappointedly at his friends after they caught him back up to speed with the situation “Lance! I can’t believe how completely idiotic you are sometimes! Seriously! RULE NUMBER _ONE_ is always never, ever, _ever_ take up one of Pidge's bets!”

“Hey!” Pidge scowled “It’s only a bit of fun Hunk it’s not like I’m telling him to lick the inside of a toilet again! Plus, this could be interesting!!”

“I don’t care how _interesting_ this could get for _you,_ Pidge, we all know you’re sense of humour can get a bit twisted at the best of times.” Hunk put his hands on his hips like an angry mother scolding their kids for drawing all over the walls and ruining the new carpet “AND AS FOR YOU, LANCE! I can’t believe you! Have you even _thought_ of the consequences, what about this Keith kid!? You’re using some poor guy as an object for a bet- Like some sort of human chess piece! You’re going to purposely lead him on, that’s presuming he even likes guys in the first place, do you know how crazy that I-”

“Yeah okay mother Hunk that’s enough of that lecture for today thanks.” Lance said rolling his eyes without letting Hunk know how much his words were making him rethink and regret the decision, damn Hunk and his stupidly good logic and valid points. “I’m a man of my word, I’ve shaken on it and I can’t take that back now, you’re too late and I believe I have a pizza I need to deliver to my new man, _Keith_ ” Lance was serious about his word but when his sentence took a sarcastic turn, Hunk raised his hand to his forehead giving another disapproving head shake.

With that, Lance walked out to the scooter, which was ready to go out back, with the last pizza in the storage compartment at the back- thanks to Hunk. He hopped on effortlessly and started the engine. It was no time before he was back on the streets, the cool wind whipping past him, lashing his skin, providing him a sense of freedom and euphoria incomparable to anything else. This was another one of Lance’s favourite things about working as a delivery boy, the thrill of going on the open road on the bike was something Lance would never not find fun.

While on the journey, Lance decided to _try_ and piece together what he was getting himself into. For a starter:

Keith was probably a guy (but your never can be sure)

Keith was in college because he lived in student accommodation on the university campus coincidently about 5 minutes from where Lance and Hunk lived.

He wanted someone who wasn’t pissed and was in a good mood? That could mean anything from him having a short temper, maybe he had a no bullshit attitude, he could be feeling a bit sad, maybe he had a bad experience with delivery guys?

_What had he gotten himself into?_

The journey couldn’t have gone any quicker in Lance’s opinion and now he was beginning to get anxious

_How the **hell** was Lance going to ever pull this off?_

The large silver building seemed completely daunting as it towered well over him. He took a large gulp in a totally unsuccessfully attempt to stop his stomach going crazy, even though $50 wasn’t that much, Lance couldn’t afford to shell that much out to _Pidge_ of all people. For once, Lance didn’t feel as cocky and confident. This really was make or break for the bet.

He approached the building slowly, pizza in one hand and delivery details in the other. The form said Dorm 80 so Lance took a deep breath and rang the door phone pad and typed in 80. He felt his heart speed up so much he thought he might die before Keith ever picked up the phone. With every ring his heart got faster, faster, faster, faster.

Then the ringing stop. Then his heart stopped

“H-hello?” a muffled voice on the line was projected into the open air. Lance took a moment to process everything before starting. He cleared his throat, buying time while he tried to think of something to say.

“Well, hello there” Lance tried to play it smooth but he just ended up sounding like a pretentious asshole and regretted saying it the second the first syllable escaped his lips. _Play it cool, just play it cool, calm down it’s only $50 just be cool!_ “It appears I have a pizza or a Keith?” he tried to make his voice smooth and suave but it made the sound even worse. He already mucked it up. _Good bye $50…_

“Sounds right” The voice sniggered down the phone. Was that meant to be mean? Was he making fun of Lance? Was it his laugh? Why was it so scary?! Lance had almost forgotten he was part of the conversation and when Keith spoke he almost jumped out of his skin making a fine effort to not yelp out of shock.

Silence. Both boys stood listening to nothing until Lance realised it was actually his turn to speak.

“Sooo… you gonna come down orrr-?” He thought quickly in an attempt to stop himself looking like a terrified idiot, flipping the awkward silence onto Keith.

“Oh right yeah, I’ll be right there hang on” Keith had hung up the phone and Lance began to pace backwards and forwards. He could see the corridor through the glass but noticed the elevator was not moving between the floors. Maybe Keith hadn’t reached it yet? Maybe it was at the other side of the building to Keith? No. it had been a minute or so, he might be taking the stairs. But apartment 80 must have been 7, 8 or even 9 floors up! Who knew?

Lance’s mind was drifting so far he had to force himself to stand still while he took a few breaths. He had no clue why this was so nerve wracking, he was a natural people person and loved talking to new people while working. He leaned with his back against the smooth, freezing metal door frame checking the time on his phone. That’s when he noticed something moving inside from the corner of his eye. Was that Keith?

The guy shuffled towards the door giving Lance a quick nod. From what Lance could tell, Keith was shorter than him- not by loads but it was noticeable-, he had raven hair that had a brownish reddish glint in the unnatural corridor light, His eyes were dark but not blue or brown however, Lance was too far to see them, he was pale, although, his eyes looked like he either had horrific hay fever or he had been rubbing them or been crying. He wore an incredibly baggy burgundy chunky wool sweater that must have been at least 2 or 3 sizes too big for his frame so it hung off one of his shoulders exposing the black tank top that would have been hidden otherwise been hidden; Along with this, the end of the sleeves was bunched up and tucked into his relatively small, thin fingers. Next, he wore some not-too-baggy not-too-tight pair of capris which Lance thought looked a bit stupid and some incredibly fluffy red and black striped bed socks.

In the time it took for Lance to register Keith’s appearance he suddenly noticed something; Keith wasn’t just another college student, oh no, Keith just happened to be in his art studies, astrophysics and engineering classes AND he was the top of every single one of his classes meaning Lance had no chance topping any of his, which would only be important to someone who was as competitive and proud as Lance.

“ _You’re_ Keith?!” Lance exclaimed accidentally out loud making him almost drop the pizza once he heard himself. He needed to tread carefully if he wanted to get anywhere with this guy (which was annoying due to the fact Lance had serious envy and built-up frustration with this guy). For the time being he just tried to forget it and set it aside.

“Umm? Yes?” he looked up at the other boy with a semi-irritated semi-confused look on his face.

“Ha. Ha. Yeaaah. You’re Keith. Ha” Lance’s awkward laughs made him want to repeatedly smack his head against a wall and scream _‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?’_ for an eternity.

“I-I’m sorry but do I know you?” Of course he Keith knew him, he knew exactly who Lance was. Lance was the cocky boy who sat 2 rows and 3 seats to the left of him in art, sat behind him by 4 rows in engineering and was 6 seats to his right in astrophysics. Keith knew that Lance always answered registers by saying _‘Hey_ ’ with a smirk and a 2 finger salute in the direction of the person taking it. Keith saw the way Lance nibbled his pencil and squinted his eyes when he was thinking and practically every other little tick he had in lessons because it drove him insane! He was so obnoxious and attention seeking that it made Keith want to single handedly scratch out Lance’s eyes with a tea spoon.

“Oh right yeah” He smirked “The name’s Lance” he said regaining his cool leaning back up against the door. “I’m in a few of your classes”

“Right you’re the idiot who tried to flirt with the engineering professor and they almost clamped you’re hands to the desk.” Keith replied with a _hey-I-couldn’t-give-less-shits-if-I-tried_ tone which managed to get a salty reaction from the other.

“Hey! Not. Cool. Man.” He growled in a fluster, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

“Haha, alright Mr ladies’ man. Here.” Keith held out the money. Lance stared at his hand for a split second forgetting that he was actually on his job and that he was supposed to be given money at the end of a delivery. Lance was lost in Keith’s hands, just studying every last line and how they were almost blue looking in the darkness and how he could still see the patches of red on his knuckles.

“O-oh- right! Yeah.” He took the money and clumsily counted “Great exact change thanks for making life a million times easier”

“Pleasure.” Keith sniggered, now leaning against the other side of the door.

“This must be yours then.” Lance passed the pizza to him, which he received with two hands.

“It appears so.”

“You think you’re funny don’t you” Lance jeered at the other in poor attempt of carrying on conversation.

“Oh really, that’s tight coming from _you_ ”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh…oh, yeah” his sarcasm made both boys laugh

“Nice talk, man.”

“Uh? Thanks?” silence “Goodnight then.” Keith began to close the door on Lance in a hasty attempt to keep any interactions short and minimal.

“Hey- wait!” Lance caught him as he was just about to turn away. Keith span around for the last time, they were so close he could feel Lance’s warm breath oh his forehead.

“you seem like a nice guy, see you around some time?” He wasn’t entirely sure whether that was an invite or a goodbye so he just smiled with a breathy laugh.

“Yeah, something like that.” The door between them closed leaving Lance to get back on the scooter and leave, but in that moment he lingered, watching Keith move back towards the stairs. In a split second, just as he was about to push open the stairwell door, Keith took a glance back and they instantly locked eyes. Lance awkwardly looked away immediately and leapt for the scooter to make him look less like he was genuinely staring at him. He saw Keith laugh to himself and give a small unenthusiastic wave back.

_Shit._

_His eyes, they're purple._

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Golden sunlight shattered across the room like shards of glass and Keith felt every last fragment hitting his drowsy body in a million tiny pieces; slowly, this made his well-rested eyelids quiver delicately as he began to stir ever so quietly. Memories of the night before flooded his mind, the helplessness, the isolation, the pizza, the pizza boy, the weird ass conversation, the strange bubbly feeling in the pit of his chest that made it hard to speak or think, the way going up the flights of steps felt easier than usual, the way his dorm now smelt of pizza, the 3 slices of pizza he kept in the fridge for the morning.

Keith lifted his heavy, sleep-filled head and squinted at his open blinds, he must have fallen asleep by accident. Looking down, he noticed he was still wearing yesterday’s jumper and pants. Present Keith sighed at past Keith for not even bothering to get ready for bed, realizing how bad his pizza breath really was. With a big stretch, he pulled himself out of bed grabbing his phone off the cabinet; the only thing present on the screen was _9:14 Wednesday 16 th November_.  Keith yawned and ran a hand through his hair giving it an effortless ruffle, deciding it would be a good time to run a shower, so that’s what he did. He grabbed the pizza from the fridge and turned on the warm water, watching the singular droplets drizzle down that glass. Next, he found some clean clothes (scoffing the cold pizza as he went) and shuffled back to the bathroom.

Being a pretty clean person usually meant finding things in his dorm was never a problem and when he came out of the bathroom, he already knew that he had all of his stuff ready for his day’s lectures- which conveniently started at 11 on a Wednesday- packed and sorted in his bag. He had about an hour to pick up any post, go for a walk, maybe get a drink before he had to come back onto campus. He picked up the relatively weighty bag and hauled it over one shoulder while stepping into his battered pair of red converses.

It took him the usual couple of minutes to hop his way down the stairs, once at the bottom, Keith went straight for the mail cubbies and found 6 letters. Skimming them quickly he saw one college newsletter, one letter signed Mrs C. Kirkman on the back- Carolyn Kirkman, Keith’s grandmother (the only person in his family he kept in contact with)- which probably just said she paid him more money or maybe was just checking in on him, one letter from in response to an interview for a job working in a car repair company which, when he opened it, said he didn’t get it. Finally, the last letter was in a sickly-sweet pink envelope singed K.M.K. both sides and, to his disgust, he knew exactly what it meant. The K.M.K. on the front stood for Keith Matthew Kirkman (simple) and the K.M.K. the back stood for Kim-Mai Kirkman- His mother. With a frustrated grunt Keith debated ripping it up into a million shreds never to be read ever, however, something in the back of his told him to just keep it, so he put it in his bag and carried on.

Now, that fore-mentioned walk was really needed. He burst through the glass doors and marched down the street down into the park opposite the apartment complex, his burgundy scarf picking up on the wind and occasionally slapping the sleeves of his black leather jacket.

The overwhelming flood of emotions surging inside Keith’s head began to swell and pool up so all he could think about was her. She physically disgusted him, repulsed him, broke him down to tears. Repressed memories Keith tried so hard to shake off would immediately come back haunting him like a troubled soul, lost and wandering. What she did, what she put him through was unacceptable and unforgivable.

It all started with Keith’s father, Steven, who was a sergeant in the army. Keith has grown up moving across country from army base to army base until his father was deployed to Iraq in June of 2003, so at 6 years old he barely had any friends what so ever because making friends he would just leave behind seemed pointless to him. Keith had never really spent enough time with to be able to recall many significant memories except Christmas 2003, the last time Keith ever saw him in person. That Christmas he was given a big space shit toy that he did not put down for weeks. He remembered them singing and laughing and the way his dad picked him up all the time to show him what it was like being a giant.

Unlike Keith, he was very tall with short, dull greyish blond hair and a spitting image of Sergeant Kirkman Sr (Keith’s grandfather). As Keith grew, he became more similar to his father (despite the quarter Vietnamese heritage from his mother and maternal grandmother), they were both relatively muscular, with the same facial build, jawline, deep violet blue eyes, smile, dimples, as well as the fact they were both left handed and incredibly talented at art.

He was only 7 when he saw his mother weeping down the phone to his grandmother with the telegram letter crumpled in her hand.  And from then on, that’s when Keith’s life became a living hell. His mother became so depressed, many days she would never leave her bed, leaving her scared 7-8-year-old to cook clean and look after himself; that, Keith could just about cope with, however, when it got to the point where his mother would drink bottles upon bottles of alcohol every day was where Keith became hopeless, helpless and even mentally scarred. It started with the verbal abuse, her constant shouting and blaming him for all of her problems, then it crossed to physical abuse whenever he didn’t do something right or whenever she was angry due to her drunken state. One of the scariest memories was when Keith did not go to school for a week because his mother became so out of it he thought she was dying. The sight of his mother passed out on the bed still imprinted clearly on his brain as his younger self cried and called his grandmother. Soon after hearing the tortured cries and troubling stories, Carolyn called child services and won custody of Keith when he was only 9, as Kim was sent to prison for child neglect and abuse for 7 years.

Unfortunately for Keith the damage had already been done, his plethora of mental health disorders, his issue with relationships and people, his trust issues as well as his constant (well justified) hatred for his own mother. As much as he loved and respected his grandmother, after his grandpa died when he was 11, he had to take care of her as well as himself which defeated the innocent bliss of childhood. He never really had much time to be a child and had to learn to stand on his own feet and support himself way before any of the other privileged, oblivious kids.

As the unwanted memories and thoughts flooded back, the only thing that plastered his mind was the craving of cigarettes. Now, Keith was not in any way a chain smoker, although, there was always something about cigarettes that he had always associated with stress and pain and relief that- thinking back on it- had probably originated from the days his mother would smoke around him when she was in one of her moods which must have just rubbed off on him too. Back he was 15 and wore dark eyeliner, studded belts and emo band shirts, he and all his _‘cool’_ scene kid friends smoked in local parks all the time, he then decided to give up full time smoking aged 17 because the risks were just too much and it kind of made him look at bit like a tool (especially as it was still illegal for him to even have them). Now that he was 19, he occasionally had the need for a cigarette when he became particularly stressed or angry and nothing made him more stressed out and angry than the thought of his mother. To ensure his habit did not continue, Keith made sure he only ever carried 2 on him at a time. He unzipped the breast pocket of the jacket and pulled out the lighter and the last cigarette in the pack making, a mental note to purchase some more.

He followed the park path with the least amount of people so he did not disturb them with the potent fumes. The breeze ran cold across his ears as his hair was battered and pushed about with it. He lit it swiftly, like he was trying to hide it as if he was 15 again. The smoke was grainy and thick and almost choked him but at least it distracted him from his own thoughts for a moment.

He decided to rest against a tree and take in his surrounding for a moment, lose himself in anything that wasn’t his past. Holding the cig between his teeth, he fished his phone out his pocket and unwound the red headphones popping then into his ears and turning on his music. Keith’s brain drowned in the sound of ‘R U Mine?’ By the Arctic Monkeys and intoxicating chemical-full smoke that filled his lungs. Hyper-aware of every small inhalation and exhalation, he closed his eyes escaping the world for a moment or too.

That moment was long and peaceful as his vulnerability lowered and his senses heightened; this was probably the closest he could be to his mind finally being at ease. Right as he was about to lift his cigarette to his mouth once more, someone took the cigarette out of thin fingers, coming too close for comfort and spoke in an annoyingly familiar yet hushed voice, making his stomach summersault.

“Hey, _pretty boy_ ” he said in a deep smirk “anyone ever tell you cigarettes aren’t cool anymore?”


	5. Chapter 5

Keith stood out like a sore thumb compared to the evergreen foliage and barren trees lining one of the more secluded trails, leaning against a tree so that only half of his body was visible from where Lance was walking. With a smirk, Lance ran back to the park gate and walked in eyeing his prey like a hungry lion hunting a zebra.

Today, Keith’s hair was down hanging loose around his neck flirting with the multiple collars of both his black leather jacket cropped just above his waist and an oversized red plaid shirt, under that he had a dark grey shirt, probably the v neck one he wore most days, on top of everything was a thick scarlet scarf. Lance approached him slowly, not wanting to disturb his peace. As he followed the bend of the path, he began to notice grey plumes dispersing and disappearing from the other side of the tree.  _Was he smoking? What the actual fuck!?_

Lance’s heart sunk a little with a long sigh in between the sips of warm coffee that he cradled in his mitten-clad hands. There were leaves falling around Keith, landing by his feet, he looked he was on the cover of some angsty indie album cover.  Lance wandered over to him carefully watching every small movement, each tiny breath, each facial twitch, the way his eyebrows knitted together like something was really on his mind. Lance was happy just watching him but something was telling him to make contact with him.

Without fully thinking it through, Lance approached, receiving a face full of the thick vapour- he resisted the urge to splutter dramatically over his warm cup- then, reached up and grabbed the white and orange stick straight from Keith’s hands with a smirked grin.

Imminently Keith’s eyes opened, brows furrowed, glaring daggers that Lance received in the form of a weird sensation radiating in his stomach. Lance was only inches away from Keith’s face and it was _Really_ bothering Keith that his personal space had been breached and he could notice the stupid, most unimportant things about the idiot in front of him, like the way his smooth, tanned freckle-covered skin lifted with an almost evil looking smile, the rosiness in his cheeks, the cocked head, the raised eyebrow.

“Hey pretty boy” _Pretty boy? What the ever-loving fuck was that supposed to mean?!_ Lance mentally face-palmed as he found himself getting lost in Keith’s cool deep sea coloured irises with their violet indigo flecks around the pupils highlighting their mesmerising clarity “anyone ever tell you cigarettes aren’t cool anymore?”

Keith reached out to snatch it back, Lance continued to wave it out of his reach with his coffee cup free hand, taunting him. With a growl, a fist found its way into Lance’s jaw; it certainly was not hard enough to actually _break_ it but it was hard enough to send a whining brunet stumbling backwards almost sending the scorching coffee flying where as it just splashed a little, burning any skin the deadly droplets came into contact with. The cigarette was now on the floor still burning “Holy shit Keith!? What that actual fuck man!?” he spluttered clinging to his jaw. Keith extinguished the fallen cig with one reluctant stamp.

“Don’t you dare do that again.” He growled blankly

“What!?” he shrugged innocently, breaking their prolonged eye contact “I’m saving you from lung cancer, you should be thanking me”

“Will you just shut up!?” Keith turned his nose up as he swept his hand through his inky black hair

“What’s your problem Mr. Grumpy pants?!?” his free hand found its way into his jacket pocket while he gave a patronizing grin.

“Apparently an annoying nuisance in the shape of a 6-foot-whatever man-boy.” Keith had decided to keep eye contact to the minimum as it was beginning to get uncomfortable talking. He pretended to be uninterested in the playful-puppy like guy standing before him by putting in his crimson earphones back in his ear and becoming almost fully invested in _‘Bad Habit’_ by The Kooks which he had turned down slightly when he had been rudely interrupted.

“Aww come on Keithikins! It hurts when you ignore me” He grabbed his chest and sobbed dramatically in a pathetic display of acting.

Keith was glaring at him again, not in a _‘I’m so angry I’m going to kick your sorry ass to the fucking moon’_ like before, but in a fed up _‘I’m so done with your shit, Lance’_ way (which was in fact a look Lance was well acquainted with).

“ _Never call me that again_ ”

“Okay, Okay” Lance said with a defeated laugh. Keith stepped away from the tree giving even less regards for the boy standing behind him. “Whatever you say Keithiki-” Before lance could even finish he found himself pinned up against the tree where the other had previously been stood. With a tight fist full of Lance’s hoodie, Keith growled barely using any of his strength to restrain the bastard in front of him.

“Is _this_ how you want to play, is it?

“Oh my- ¡Por dios! - okay-” he huffed a mumbled exclamation, regretting ever opening his mouth (but kind of not because this was a different side of Keith and he wasn’t quite sure if this whole situation made him fucking terrified for his life or a kind of turned on by badass super-human strength dominant crazy Keith or an incredibly strange and uncomfortable mix of the two). Keith’s grip tightened more due to the fact Lance was annoyingly cuter when scared _and_ Spanish, Lance swallowed the last of the breath he was holding onto, one of his sweaty palms pressed firmly against the tree while the other has it’s slipping grasp on the coffee cup, trying not to let his fear seep out.

“ _Well_?” he snarled, teeth bared, eyebrows knitted together, the fire in his plum eyes burning warm enough for Lance to physically feel.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t kill me, please” Keith let him go, spinning around so his back was facing Lance who was dropped so suddenly that he stumbled once again. “I promise I won’t do it again but that was not fair-”

“‘ _No, it isn’t. But that’s the way it is.’”_ Keith sniggered to himself, proud of his quoting.

“What?!”

“What?” Keith looked back, unsure what Lance’s problem was now.

“What was that? Why was it funny? I don’t get it?”

“SERIOUSLY!?” He was gobsmacked, how did Lance not know that “Labyrinth?!”

“What?”

“It a quote from the movie ‘Labyrinth’”

“Oh like the 80s one with David Bowie in?”

“Yes!” Keith said raising an eyebrow.

“Right yeah, haven’t seen it”

“Are you actually kidding me”

“No? What why does this-”

“ _YOU_ _HAVEN’T SEEN IT?_ Like seriously what kind of sad, deprived childhood did you have!? I mean shit I had a pretty bad childhood but still, dude, Labyrinth c’mon it’s a classic!” Keith’s flailing and gestures as well as his clear passion for the film was such a nice contrast to scary Keith that Lance was genuinely shocked. However, one comment had hit him hard. Lance was not going to bring up the constant trips to hospitals, the years it took to be diagnosed, the way his parents blamed themselves, the way his siblings were always worried, the way his genetic COPD gave him already, the way that pneumonia somehow spiralled into pneumothorax and he very rarely left a hospital growing up. Yeah, Keith didn’t need Lance to put a damper on his sudden mood change. “Lance?”

“Oh right sorry. Must have zoned out, sorry.” Lance smiled weakly with a hand behind resting on his grey beanie as he stared at the floor

“Urgh, Rude!” Keith let out a cute sarcastic giggle and the warmth of his breath met the cold air expelling a cloud of whitish vapour. He jabbed Lance in the side as he walked past him back onto the path.

“Right. Yeah. Labyrinth.”

“Seriously, I can’t believe this Lance!” the way Keith said his name made his stomach lurk slightly, it was new and strange and felt almost as exhilarating as driving through town on the scooter when nobody else was on the roads. “You need to see it, even if its once and you hate it but-” Keith continued to waffle about the film as Lance was distracted, watched his movements carefully, every little animated motion- he never ever imagined Keith to be a hand talker- but the way his eyes just lit up and that spark as he talked was too much for Lance to handle. That’s when he remembered, this was all supposed for that bet with Pidge, just a game, a game Lance had already failed at when he tired but now something was different, something he couldn’t quite place or admit. God this was all so wrong and messed up.

They walked over to the fountain in the middle of the park (Keith was still taking about Labyrinth and his low-key crush on David Bowie) and due to the fact it was still quite early, nobody was sat on any of the benches. “Seriously, Lance” _goddamn it again, no please for the love of god, he needs to stop doing that **right now**. _ Lance really needed him to just stop saying his name, it was driving him literally insane. “I’m going to force you to watch it at some point if I have to. I can’t see a poor, lost soul and not try to help them” Keith laughed at himself again.

“Okay, do you want me over after my shift then? I mean, like, erm, that’s only if you want to-and like, I don’t want to invite myself and interrupt and, like-”

“S-sure. That’d be nice.” Keith felt the burning sensation spread across his cheeks, ears and the rest of his face like a forest fire. As he turned his head away from Lance in rush to not let him see the awkward pink colour that he was absolutely certain he was turning, he felt something damp fall beside his hand and as he looked up he noticed the world around him had become considerably blurrier. _Shit._

“What?” Lance studied the frantic boy as he fumbled on the bench.

“Contact fell out.” Keith eventually found the transparent disk and picked it up with a finger. He opened the front of his bag and pulled out a contact case and placed the contact inside to deal with later.

“You wear contacts?” Lance said intrigued as he sat on the metal side of the bench still sipping away at his coffee.

“Obviously” Keith said waving his hand indicating the contact box he just put into his bag again. Lance used his rummaging as an excuse to just aimlessly stare at Keith, trying to figure him out. His small button nose was bright red from the freezing winter air, he wore black fingerless gloves exposing his soft pink fingertips, his hair looked kind of damp as if it was roughly towel dried. After rummaging again, he took out a black case and opened it, picking up a pair of large black and red framed glasses. Lance watched in awe as his secret glasses kink kicked in.

“Aww hipster Keith!” Lance laughed heartily with his hand eclipsing his mouth, eyes squinting.

“Look, I might wear glasses, yeah, but don’t think I won’t kick your ass- because I will if you don’t fuck off okay!?” He raised a wary eyebrow, looking away from Lance as his packed the case away and stood up. “Plus, you can’t fight a person with glasses, that’s just rules”

Lance stood in stunned silence not quite sure what to do next.

“C’mon jerk, we have Art Studies in 10, let’s go”

“Oh, right. Ha ha yeah lessons they’re a thing. I forgot.” Lance sighed “WAIT! Hey!! I am _no_ jerk unless you’re one of my exes then I probably am a jerk but that’s kind of justifiable-”

“Whatever, let’s go already.”

Lance jumped off the bench and they walked together back onto campus side-by-side. Friends of Lance soon spotted him and he smiled and walked away to join them, turning back to Keith and saying _‘I’ll see you later then’_ just loud enough for both of them to hear before disappearing into the crowd of college kids leaving Keith on his own.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! so hey this is the first time I've used the notes section this fic, so firstly, Hi! I am so glad that you are reading and (hopefully) enjoying Pizza Boy so far!  
> I would just like to say THANK YOU ALL SO SO SO MUCH for 1200 hits and all your positive feed back, I love reading your comments and seeing what you think- You're all so lovely, oh my goshh!  
> Next, this is the reason I need to make this (quite obvious yet necessary) message, tomorrow I go back to school which means my updates may not be as frequent but I promise they will always be on their way soon, as I spend all of my free time writing. So, yeah I apologize for any delays in the future and I hope you can bare with me!  
> That's all from me this chapter! Thank so much for reading.  
> ~Lynne


	6. Chapter 6

The day couldn’t seem to go fast enough for Lance, as he sat in his last lecture, bored out of his mind, staring at the clock gnawing at the end of his pen that he should have really been using to take notes. Lance had managed to perfect the art of counting down the exact moment of the bell to the point where he would mutter ‘3,2,1’ and imitate the buzzer noise so loudly and obnoxiously that what might have been impressive once or twice became an insanely irritating trick topped off with a cocky smirk. When Lance pulled this trick for probably what was the 200th time that year already, he marched his way proudly towards the door of the astrophysics class, turning left, note folded and hidden inside his slightly-sweaty palms. He counted the seats he passed in his head.

_‘3…4…5…’_

He sneaked a peak to his right slightly, he saw exactly what he wanted to see. Not many people had started to get up and leave because they stilled needed to pack their equipment into their bulky backpacks. His heart was running a marathon inside his heavy chest as his grip loosened, eyes closed and found the courage to drop the note on the desk beside him. _‘…6’_

Lance’s exit was swift, Keith picked up the piece of torn up note page in the blink of an eye. At first it looked nothing special, like a messy ripped piece of scrap paper, however, on second inspection he realized that once unfolded it contained a message and a scribbly doodle; It read:

_‘I get off work at around 10:45-10:50, be at yours after then. Don’t make dinner, I have another pizza screaming my name from work, you can show me your hipster kids movie’_

He added a simple winking smiley-face with it’s tongue hanging out and an _‘L’_ signed in the same scratchy handwriting. Below that was a sketch, it was really cartoony and straightforward illustration of 2 guys sat on a bed holding slices of pizza staring at a laptop. One of the guys was smaller than the other and had big glasses, longish hair that was crosshatched black, big stars in his eyes, one of those derpy ‘W’ mouths, it’s facial features were all soft, small and rounded in contrast to the longer sketchier appearance of the other boy who had a long lopsided grin and messy looking hair. Both of the pictures had little red biro circles under their eyes and on their noses. _Was this smiling doodle really how Lance saw Keith?_

He was flattered to say the least and the picture did make him giggle to himself. He has been mindlessly watching Lance scribbling most of that lesson and knowing he was drawing that silly note for him gave him this unfamiliar warm fuzzy feeling. That’s when he remembered that Lance _was_ actually coming to his dorm later and that he totally forgot that they had arranged that earlier. _Shit._

Keith made his way back to his dorm as quickly as possible, his mind raging with a mix of anxiety, excitement, fear and frenzied panic while he was left alone with his thoughts. It had only been a day, he only talked to this guy for the first time less than 24 hours ago and he already felt so comfortable around him that he had inviting him over- this wouldn’t have been as bad for normal people but Keith usually hated everyone with very, very, very few exceptions to this rule. He _must’ve_ been crazy or ill, something was wrong. Why was Lance of all people the person that Keith felt like he could trust? In fact, the rational part of Keith was certain that Lance was not to be trusted in any way shape or form and yet another part of him churned at the very notion. What even _was_ Lance to Keith? What did Keith _want_ Lance to be to him? Just thinking about this made him kind of giddy and at the same time confused. Keith _REALLY_ hated emotions.

Everything inside the smallish room was spotless, although Keith still felt like there was so much to do, so much to clean, so much to pack away. He added a few more of his doodles to his wall, watered his small windowsill plants, re-organised his desk again, opened his laptop and found the film link in advance, sorted through his bag to organise it for the next morning. He grabbed his battered leather jacket and Lance’s note fell from the pocket; picking it up hastily, it found its way to the centre of the wooden desk at the foot of his bed.

******

Lance was even more cheerful mood than the previous day and that fact was beginning to freak out his colleagues. There was something up, something that he was hiding and it was fishy. The usually lazy Lance was moving at an incredible speed, taking deliveries in record time so when it came to the last few orders of the night, Lance got then all done by 10:36.  Pidge was just taking Lance’s pizza out the oven when he came back after driving about 75mph on a 50mph road to get back with enough time to spare.

“Someone’s eager tonight” Shiro chuckled clapping Lance on the back.

“Yep, places to be people to see and that.”

“People?” the fire spread across his cheeks once he realized what Shiro was implying.

“N-no! Well, yes, just a friend from college Shiro, Jesus Christ” He rolled his eyes nervously.

“Friend?” he raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

“Shut up!” Shiro laughed at Lance’s innocence, it was actually sadly funny in a way. “Right, Pidgey you have the pizza?”

“Not just-“

“HURRY UP!!” 

“Altea, Lance, stop being antsy I’m sure Keith can wait!” Lance’s face fell, the fire burning brighter and hotter than ever.

“Keith? What? What about Keith? Keith the bet guy? _Who even is this Keith you speak of!?!_ ” Pidge joined in with the suspicious _‘I’m not buying this crap’_ look.

“Definitely Keith, your lying is appalling I can see right through you. Plus, you walked into school with him today.” Paying no attention to the mumbling idiot behind him as he proceeded to continue preparing the pizza.

“Pfffffft, I don’t know what you’re talking about. K bye see you tomorrow” Lance gripped the box in Pidge’s hands, pulled it off Pidge and took off ignoring all the screams from back in the kitchen.

Luckily Keith’s dorms were only a 15-minute walk from P.P.P., so when it got to 10:55 and he was standing outside in the freezing temperatures in only a t-shirt, pants and beanie, he began to question his life choices. For the second time ever, his shaking hands wavered over the keypad as he typed ‘80’.  Before it had even rung one full time, the receiver picked up.

“Lance?” The voice that echoed out into the night sounded quite surprized and yet relieved.

“Well, the name’s Lance.” Keith could practically hear Lance’s stupid grin from the outside of the complex.

“I’ll be down in a bit. Just wait there.” And with that the line went dead.

It was a good 2 or 3 minutes before he small figure sprang from the staircase, jet hair and sparkling eyes, once Lance spotted him he felt his own grin spread infectiously between them.

Despite holding the still steaming box of pizza to his chest, Lance looked not short of frozen, his shoulders slouched and huddled in a poor attempt to conserve heat, his nose, cheeks and ears flushed a deep crimson whereas the rest of his usually tanned skin seemed positively blue and his toothy smile quivered, his teeth chattered in harmony with his little shivers.

“You’re freezing.” Admittedly more of a statement than a question but Keith felt it necessary to state the obvious.

“Wow, how can you tell?” Lance retorted sarcastically with a signature raised eyebrow which was suddenly concealed by a flash of red flannel.

“Shut up.”

“You say that a lot don’t you.” Lance said as he removed the shirt from his face with a free hand. This earned him a gentle push.

“Do you want to stay out here all night?” Keith mimicked the pouty face that Lance wore so naturally. It was really strange for Lance to have one of his own signature faces used against him but there was something about the way Keith used it which drove Lance a little bit more crazy.

“Damn. Okay.” Moving from the doorway, Keith took the shirt off lance and draped I across his shoulders as he passed through the threshold.

“Are you okay with stairs? It’s just I have a bit of a problem with lifts so y’know-”

“Stairs are fine”

_Stairs were **not** fine._

Keith was clearly very used to walking up so many flights but lance was not and by the 6th set he had to stop and catch his breath, admitting defeat for once, which he decided to blame on the extra pizza weight he was holding. Once they had eventually reached the 8th floor, Lance practically collapsed.

“Jesus Christ it would have been easier to just carry you, you should have taken my offer back on the 4th floor.” He shrugged stepping over the weak body that was sprawled out on the dark blue carpet of the 8th floor corridor. Lance shot a humiliated gaze up at the boy who really couldn’t care less.

“Shut up.”

“Thought that was my line.” The body on the floor groaned loudly in protest, receiving small appreciative sigh. “Yo, earth to Lance, if you don’t pick up your tired ass and that pizza soon neither of you will be allowed in.”

“Finnnneeee” he whined, rolling around like a giant 6” baby.

“You’re so needy,” Keith rolled his eyes and approached the heap on the floor extending a helpful hand. “Get up.” Lance reached out and grabbed Keith’s hand, It was surprisingly warm and even softer than Lance expected. With one strong yank, Keith found himself accompanying Lance on the floor. “YOU’RE SUCH A DICK, SERIOUSLY, ARE YOU FIVE?!

“Sorry, saw the opportunity, took it.” Lance then remembered that he was talking to _Keith_ the guy who could probably rip off both of his arms at once. Before he could even pray for his life, he found himself flipped onto his back with a relatively heavy weight slamming onto his chest, nearly winding him. That’s it, he was dead _for sure_. He cautiously opened his eyes to check if he was safe.

“You’re not going to do that again, are you?” Keith’s smile was almost as evil as Pidge’s normal crazy one, however this smile was so sickly sweet that it made Lance’s muscles twitch and singe. The insane face was so close that that Lance could feel the unperturbed breathes on his forehead as he was held to the floor by a foot restraining his chest.

“N-no.” He spluttered as Keith let go of his balled fist and stood up like nothing had happened.

“I’m so glad that my neighbours are at a frat party tonight, otherwise that might have been weird.” He brushed down his pants and then his hands, only then turning back to the speechless boy on the floor. “I’m not telling you again McClain, get here now or I am closing the door and will not let you in.” instinctively he toppled to his feet clumsily and wondered down the dark hallway until they got to the dorm with a silver number 80 nailed onto the door. Keith had already put the key in the lock and twisted until the latch clicked and swung open on the creaky old hinged “It’s nothing really special but hey, this is what I call _home_ ”

Nothing really special was certainly an understatement, well, to Lance it was at least. The first thing to hit him was the faint sweet smell that welcomed them as the door had opened, it kind of smelt of peach or honey or both but it was by no means overpowering or strong. The walls were completely plastered with paper, showing of many designs and pictures (presumable all by Keith). Some were really badass and some were breathtakingly beautiful and meaningful. In some places there were photos of teenage Keith with the same messy long hair and pretty eyes but admittedly there were some questionable fashion choices. Most of the photos he looked really angsty, sad or lifeless- probably an emo thing. The room wasn’t huge but it was more spacious than Lance’s (Maybe because Lance’s room was buried under a mountain of laundry and general mess). As Keith turned on a few lamps, the stunning room was irradiated by the golden glow, that cast interesting shadows across the room due to hundreds of colourful paper birds that hung from the ceiling by thread that were also obscuring the light. Each bird span and moved as the air around them was disturbed, this mesmerised the boy who had never ever seen anything quite like it.

“What do you think then?” Keith gave a slight smile as he observed Lance’s amazed face, he looked even more innocent like a toddler discovering new things for the first time, it was so amazing and pure that for once Keith could not think of one bad thing about that moment.

“…Wow.” Was all that Lance could find in his vocabulary, still studying the new environment. This made Keith laugh.

“Never seen an origami crane before then?”

“Keith.” Lance’s glance wavered at the ceiling once more before making direct eye contact with the boy in question “They’re beautiful. Like really really beautiful, stunning even, how do you- how many-” He was so dumbfounded that as much as he tried to pluck words to say from his brain, nothing came. Keith broke the eye contact first, his cheeks beginning to get a bit warm.

 _“that means a lot, really, thank you”_ Came out as a mumbled mess of words as he grabbed the already-prepared laptop. “So… Should we start?”

Lance took a seat on Keith’s bed; it was plain and red and very clean it was also one of the most comfortable beds Lance had ever been graced to sit upon. Keith faffed with the laptop which he propped up at the end of the bed.

“Is it okay if I start on the pizza? I need to warm up a bit still I guess, also it’s all I’ve been able to smell for 6 hours-”

“OH MY GOD! I totally forgot, are you still cold!? I’m so sorry! Do you want to borrow a sweater or something??” Keith spun around on the spot with a concerned confused and apologetic look on his face. _Borrow a sweater? Borrow **Keith’s** sweater? Wear Keith’s sweater?_

“Are you sure? They probably won’t fit bu-”

“Positive, plus I appreciate a good oversized sweater, size will probably not be a problem, they’ll be fine”

“Only if you’re sure.” By this time Keith had already opened a draw and pulled out an almost raven coloured navy sweater and thrown it onto the bed. “Ah, thanks.” Lance awkwardly pulled it over his head, already feeling the comforting warmth radiate between the extra layers. The wool was warm and soft (Like Keith, Lance thought) and a bit baggy still- amazingly. It smelt sweet just like Keith and that was probably Lance’s favourite thing about it.

“You can put your feet up y’know, you may as well be comfortable” Keith nagged like a mother but something about that made Lance laugh to himself and he hauled himself onto the bed followed by a clearly excited Keith moments later. “Okay so it’s a bit dated and you need to appreciate that to be able to really enjoy it and the beginning is not as good as the rest of the film but bear with it okay.”

“Sure” Finally he clicked play and sat backward, almost falling back into Lance’s shoulder but moving just in time to keep a friendly distance.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay for anyone who wants to be fully immersed while reading this chapter here have a link to probably the most amazingly fitting song for this chapter (and possible this fic idk, maybe?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcWvBz2v5YY there is a specific part in this chapter where it's used so yeah stay tuned for that! Pay attention to the lyrics and I swear if you're anything like me, you probably be dead from feels.

Lance’s senses were flooded by sweetness and black as he began to stir. It was reassuring and pleasant and his sleepy state couldn’t tell why. His brain began to process the situation and that’s when he understood where he was and what he was doing. The darkness obscuring his vision was the messy black hair belonging to the boy curled up with his head pressing into the chest of the warm navy jumper Lance was borrowing. Lance let out a light laugh as he thought about the weird situation and just appreciated the closeness they shared and innocence of everything.

Keith was wrapped up in the red sheet with his small hands being the only thing between them. Lance’s chin was practically perched on Keith’s drowsy head, his wild hair falling in every direction, filling Lance’s nose with the scent of coconut that almost made him want to vocalize his appreciation but instead settled for a lazy arm wrapping around the sleeping boy, pulling him closer into his chest, closing his eyes again. Lance mulled over what happened that night.

They had started the film, Keith sat with wide eyes and a stupid grin, Lance was kind of confused but enjoyed watching the way Keith would be transported back to childhood and squeak with sheer excitement when anything good happened.

“Do you see that! Do you see that Lance!? Lance! Look! Look! Wait for it…” His smile got bigger as he waited. Fists shaking, pulled close to his reddish cheeks, until they exploded into a flailing wave on uncontrollable pointing. “THERE! THERE! Ahh yes, Jareth! See look! He _is_ attractive, this proves my point! Don’t you agree Lance!? God I remember having a stupidly massive gay crush on him through my whole life- everybody loves David Bowie! Lance! Agree wi-“

“Shhh!” Lance giggled, forcing another slice of pizza into the boy’s hand to shut him up. “I’m watching it! Just let me listen will you. And yes, David Bowie will forever be hot.”

 _“Knew it.”_ Keith mumbled through the pizza with a satisfied laugh.

Keith continued to make comments throughout the film, talking to it like it would react to him.  Lance would usually get annoyed about this but when it came to Keith he thought it was actually kind of cute in a weird way. When something frustrating happened Lance patted Keith’s shoulder sympathetically as he fumed about whatever it was this time. The occasional _“HOGGLE, YES!!!”_ and _“HOGGLE, NO!!!!”_ would make Lance jump as Keith suddenly sat up throwing his arms in the air. The best thing was whenever a song came on Keith literally knew every single word and was not afraid to display this knowledge.

As the movie progressed, Keith’s energy had decreased very quickly and by the part where Sarah eats the peach, he had begun to lean inwards, unable to support his ow weight; Lance didn’t mind that though, he glanced across every so often to check up on him, noticing how heavy his eyelids were getting and how his beaming smile was untouched by the waves of drowsiness that began to take effect on his body.

“Oo! Oo! Oo!” Keith perked up a little bit, using what probably was the remainder of his energy to point at the bubbles floating across the screen. “ _this_ , is my absolute favourite part!” The slow, almost hypnotic 80s music began to play, Keith lent forwards with is head propped up by a lazy hand. The twinkly music played out and Lance would say as nice as David Bowie always looked, he did admittedly have a bit of a thing for Jennifer Connelly, especially in the sparkly white dress.

_‘There's such a sad look_

_In your eyes, a kind of pale jewel_

_Open and closed within your eyes_

_I see the sky in your eyes…’_

Bowie’s sweet lyrics swam around the room, lingering in Lance’s brain, he tried to shake them off but watching the way Keith’s eyes lit up and the way he swayed along and purred in appreciation only made them stronger and more meaningful. As the words rang on, they felt more and more fitting and strangely perfect as a giddy feeling began to swell up from his chest and make his fingers and cheeks tingle with a weird kind of static sensation.

_‘…Though we're strangers till now_

_We're choosing the path between the stars_

_I'll leave my love between the stars…’_

Something inside Lance’s weary heart resonated with the words and that moment right there is when he saw it. The way Keith’s dazed body slumped backwards, flopping effortlessly against his side, his stupid grin that he had seen very, very, rarely and wanted to see _a lot_ more, the way Keith’s body leaned into his almost as if he was melting, everything from the flecks of intoxicating indigo that sent him to the brink of insanity and back to the little noises he made when he was too tired to talk to the way he wore sweaters and did his hair and wore those glasses. Lance knew it for sure but really hoped it wasn’t the case. Lance was falling and falling hard for the boy whose head found it’s way to his own bony shoulder.

_‘…Makes no sense at all_

_Makes no sense to fall_

_Falling_

_As the world falls down_

_Falling_

_Falling_

_Falling in love.’_

The steady rise and fall of Keith’s chest indicated his spiral into sleep; Lance just let the boy rest beside him for a while. Once he knew he was definitely asleep, he wrapped the red bedsheets around the him which in turn made Keith snuggle into Lance’s chest which sent a chills down his spine. It wasn’t long before Lance’s own eyelids felt dense and he struggled to keep them open. Without being able to toss up the future outcomes of his actions, his long day had completely caught up with him and he was out like a light.

As all of this information registered in his morning brain, Lance felt rather awkward and unsure of what to do next, he could get up and leave like nothing ever happened but he was rather enjoying cuddling more than he’d like to say aloud and also that might leave Keith confused once he was awake himself especially if he remembered falling asleep with Lance, too. Next, he could wake the sleeping Keith in his arms and proceed to explain how the both fell asleep and deal with the morning after awkwardness. Before he could choose the best option, Keith’s fingers twitched as he made a faint groaning noise. Lance stiffened and made the best effort to pretend to be asleep while he felt Keith’s foot, that was tucked through his legs and resting against the back of Lance’s calves, move slightly.

Keith was incredibly disorientated and rather warm, not like unbearable summer heat warm but a cosy comfortable warm the made him want to stay in bed forever, when he finally woke up. He wanted refuse the real world and stay in the dream one, where he had pizza, cute pizza boys and Labyrinth. A deep outward breath tickled the top of his head, ripping open his eyes. He looked up slowly where he was greeted by a woolly blue wall which he soon discovered was his own pizza boy and that the dream had been reality. His face flushed at the thought of what happened immediately; he had fallen asleep in the arms of _Lance Mc-fucking-Clain_ in his dorm while watching his favourite movie ever.

 _“h-hollllyyy shiittt.”_ What was supposed to only be a thought but somehow escaped his mouth in a quite breathy mumble.

 _“Mmm?”_ Lance squirmed, Keith feared he had woken the sleeping boy he was entangled with. He could feel every muscle in Lance’s lanky body move individually like a machine.

“H-hey? Hey Lance?” Keith tapped Lance’s forearm that cascaded over his back but this only resulted in him being pulled closer to Lance’s body. His hands pressed slightly against both their chests, nuzzling his face into the sweater covering Lance’s still prominent collar bones. Something about being in Lance’s arms felt safe and secure and it made all of his bad thoughts seem to fade away into oblivion. This was the pure definition of bliss.

Lance didn’t want to let go, he didn’t want this moment to end but he also didn’t want Keith to be uncomfortable because, well, he was still really scary even if he was the damned cutest thing Lance had ever laid his eyes on.

Keith took in as many little things that was happening at that moment as he could, the way Lance’s hands were clumsily big and that one was resting on his spine, the way their breathing had synced up as they were asleep, the way he knew Lance was still grinning despite not even being able to see his face. As Keith was caught up in his thoughts, he didn’t notice Lance’s leg move from on top of his, it was only after the closeness, the warm, the sweater disappeared and Lance had rolled onto his back. With an almost silent disappointed sigh, Keith rolled onto his side too and buried part of his face in the pillow.

“You awake?” Lance whispered hoarsely, it was raspy and thick with sleep. He nodded in response accompanied by a muffled noise of confirmation. Lance’s heart sank slightly, he wished he could spend even a second like that again. “Last night was really fun, even if it didn’t go to plan, and hey, least I saw Labyrinth-”

“What time did I fall asleep?” Keith rolled onto his back to join Lance as the both stared up at the ceiling.

“Oh, I don’t remember must have been 12 sometime.” It had been 12:23 exactly (he remembered checking his phone and having the urge to take a cute sleepy Keith picture but resisted for fear of death by angry awake Keith). “I was tired myself and must have fallen asleep soon after too.”

“Well, that figures” Keith’s laugh was tiny and more like a gasp but it made Lance happy all the same.

“Yeah sorry about that…” Keith shot a quick glance over in his direction

“What?”

“inviting myself over, keeping you up, falling asleep in your dorm, making things weir-”

“Yeah, no, I really don’t mind or care. It was a good night even if it ended with an impromptu slumber party.” Lance looked over at Keith, head cocked, eyebrows raised.

“Nah, it’s not a slumber party unless it has makeup, hair stuff, girlie chats, bad singing and dancing and 3+ tubs of ice cream, I have sisters, _I know these things._ ” Keith tuned to him and their eyes locked, it was like the room had filled with sparks that both boys were just unaware of.

“Oh, you poor child.” He nudged Lance’s side with his elbow, Lance retaliated by grabbing his sleeve as he pulled away. Keith had become unaware of the scratches and cuts he wore with mixed feelings until Lance’s fingertips brushed over his entire arm. The sudden stinging and exposed feeling almost made him writhe and scream but instead he rolled back over trying to hide his arm behind his chest.

“…Keith? You alright?”

“Yes.” he hissed with such fury that Lance was genuinely taken aback and confused.

“No, Keith, what did I do? Did I hurt you, I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean to do anything, I really- I mean-”

“I-I think you should just got now.”

 _‘I think you should just go now’_. These words hit Lance like bullets through his heart, Keith was upset and Lance had no clue why and that was enough to hurt him but knowing he caused this made his guilt ridden mind sink. _He_ had made Keith upset. It was _his_ fault and now he had to leave. He had ruined this moment. He had ruined something again. It was his fault. It was always his fault. Why was it always him messing up things like this up? He wanted to argue, to fight back, hold Keith even tighter in his arms, he wanted to _stay._

“Oh.” He choked back, trying not to let any emotion show through. He found his feet quickly and moved stiffly to the door placing a hand over the shiny silver handle. “Look, I am not sure what I’ve done am I am so, so, sorry if I have hurt you and I really hope you’re okay and you don’t hate me because I definitely quite hate me at the moment. Anyways beside the point, thank you for a great night, if you ever need to talk or want to hang out, order a pizza, I’ll be straight there-  that’s a promise.” Small sniffily sobs were barely audible in the silence but Lance heard every single one, and each one broke his heart a little more. “I know you can hear me Keith, I’ll leave like you want but only when I know you’re okay.”

“…Its… not… you…”

“O-okay, I’m going to respect your wishes and give you some space now, but only if you’re sure you want to be alone.” Keith nodded into the pillow. Lance debated whether he should go back over and just hug him anyway or maybe wipe away his tears and kiss his pretty little face, and maybe do that again and again and again until he stopped crying. “I’ll be waiting, Keith, I don’t care how long for but I’ll always be here, well not like _here_ here, that would be creepy, but if you need me _ever_ I’ll always be there. I promise.”

And with that, Lance stepped out of the room, closing the door lightly behind him. For the first time all day, he took out his phone and instead of checking his messages he opened up his contacts. Luckily he always kept some scrap paper and a pen in his pant pocket for emergency phone number giving opportunities (which Lance hated to admit that he never really had to use, but still, it was nice to be prepared). He ripped the lid off the pen and scribbled a quick note and his phone number. Once he was happy with it, he folded it and slipped it under the door.

 

*****

 

“PIDGE!!” Lance chased down the street as he saw the small figure and familiar head bob through the small crowd. It had only taken a short walk before Lance found himself on the high-street strolling casually back to his own dorm. He watched the head bob up and down until he was certain that it belonged the evil master mind in training that they all loved so dearly. “For god’s sake Pidge. If you have your headphones on, I’ll be so pissed.” It took him a good minute to battle past the crowds but he eventually caught up. Pidge turned as soon as Lance reached for the shoulder beyond him.

“Lance? Why weren’t you at engineering?”

“Mine. Now. follow me!” Lance gripped Pidge by the wrist and paced onwards without any explanation whatsoever.

“What!? Lance! Ah! Let go I know the way to yours’s and Hunk’s! You don’t, ow, need, ow, to drag, ow, ow, ow, me.” He let go semi-sympathetically “Sheesh, what are your trying to do to me!?”

“We need to talk. This is _serious_.”

Lance’s dorm was a mess, it always smelt like curry or greasy takeout food from probably the previous night or the night before that or maybe even the week before, clothes (Both dirty and clean) were tossed carelessly into mountains that littered the almost invisible floor. Sweet wrappers were spilling out of the side of the bin, it was surprising they didn’t have an infestation of bugs or rats by now. Despite the horrific living conditions, it was home and Hunk and Lance loved their organised mess.

Pidge was the first through the door, throwing it open so both of them could enter and Lance could finally say what was so urgent that he needed to pull Pidge away from the religious Thursday MaccyD’s break.

“What is it you want to tell me, Altea, Lance I swear-” The smirk on Lance’s face was enough to say everything he was thinking.

“You owe me $50” He said smugly, rocking back and forth between the ball and heels of his feet.

“No way. You can’t have. We made the bet 2 days ago, Lance.” Pidge cocked an eyebrow genuinely confused and concerned.

“You see,” Lance began, the smirk growing “Last night after my shift, I went to Keith’s.”

“I BLOODY KNEW IT! Haha! Hunk owes me $10”

“ _Shut up._ ” And with that Pidge shut up. “Anyway, I went to his and we watched Labyrinth.”

“The 80s one with David Bowie?”

“Yes, of course the 80s one with David Bowie, _now shut up_.” Lance waited like an angry teacher for his friend to shut up once again. “As I was saying, we watched it sat together on his bed and ate that pizza and I wore-” He looked down at the navy jumper that still clung to his body. “okay, _shit_ , well it appears I’m still wearing the jumper he lent me, and get this, he fell asleep!”

“Dude, you realize a guy falling asleep while hanging out with you is not usually not a good thing right?” Pidge put a hand on Lance’s arm like when you are talking to an upset child.

“Ah, that is where you are wrong, there’s just something about sleepy boys that is so Goddamn adorable especially when they snuggle up to you and make cute ‘hmph’ noises and snore so gently it’s like they’re purring like a little kitten.” Just thinking about all the best little things of the night before made his heart stop then race and his head giddy and light all at the same time.

“Ew. No thanks. Don’t relay your sleeping kinks to me. Totally kink shaming you again. Ew.”

“Shut up, you just don’t want to give me $50.”

“I don’t, and I have good reasons.”

“What?”

“You see,” Pidge paced backwards and forwards while talking. “Firstly, did you officially ask him out on a date, for example, ‘Hello Mr Keith Sir, would you give me the pleasure of accompanying you on a date?”

“Umm no?” Lance pouted with a notorious raised eyebrow.

“Also, did you both agree it was a meaningful romantic date?”

“Well…”

“So that’s a no the, right, so you had no mutual romantic intentions on said meeting in question and if him falling asleep on you was an accident that you made kinky in your twisted brain was the only ‘romantic’ thing to happen all night, I deduct that this was in fact not a proper date.”

“Okay, firstly, _Shitlock Holmes_ , I CRADLED HIM IN MY ARMS, we were spooning, I played with his hair, it was fluffy and smelt really good!”

“So, you have no evidence of that.”

“I missed engineering to stay and cuddle him, granted I had no clue what the time was but still, I’m even wearing _his_ Jumper! Look!” he tugged at the wool trying to wave it in the face of the unimpressed Pidge who only turned a nose up at it.

“So, I borrow Hunk’s shirts all the time _we’re_ not dating.”

“This is different.”

Lance was beginning to panic. He needed this bet to be over. It was so stupid and pointless and everything Hunk had said 2 days previously. The guilt that resulted from the bet was eating away at his sanity he hated it. He hated the fact he couldn’t back down, he hated the fact he was cocky enough to agree to it and he especially hated the fact he fell in love. That was the worst part. He loved Keith, it had been not even 2 days and yet he had never ever been surer of anything in his life. The fact he yearned to be back next to him made him want to scream at his own stupidity. People say love hurts but was it supposed to hurt this much? Either way Lance had fucked up in multiple ways already and the regret was going to consume him. _This was different._

“Fuck it, seriously Pidge I just need this bet to be over okay!”

“Why, because Sir Lancelot can’t pull?”

“Oh you really have a death wish do you midget!?” Lance’s eyes filled with a blazing anger that took a few seconds to subside.

“Are you admitting defeat?”

“Fuck no.”

“Then you have until January 1st to get my money unless you go on a date you both agree is a date, you do something meaningful like, I don’t know, take him out somewhere? A two-day effort will not scape it.”

“You!?! Pidge. Gwaah.” He buried his frustrated face in his hands and groaned. “Fine. Fine! I’ll play your stupid game Holt, and I’ll beat you! Just you fucking wait and see!” Lance completely ignored the events of the morning, somehow thinking that everything would magically be okay if he said it was enough times.

“Okay Lance, whatever you want to tell yourself to feel like you’re not going to completely fail.” Pidge gave him a dramatic eye roll and drifted out of the room without taking a single glance back.

Lance flipped off the door that was shut on Pidge’s exit. He proceeded to fall back onto his bed with a long sigh. He was the one who got himself into this stupid situation and now he could hurt the only person who he had ever felt this strongly about before. It was simple, he needed Keith and his stupid sarcasm, annoying comebacks, his super strength, the way his laugh rang out through the air and especially his really, really, stupid pretty eyes.

After lulling over his thoughts, he got up and took a shower, still trying to wake up from the dream turned nightmare that he was living. He was worried, he wanted to know that Keith was okay, Lance was never good at comforting people especially if he was the one who had hurt them. There was no way (That Lance could think of, anyway) to make things okay and that made him want to bash his head against the bathroom wall.

It wasn’t until after he had left the shower and got changed that things were beginning to look up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah so you have finally made it to the first of many action-y chapters and we have left the awkward beginning stages (At last!) so yeah that's rather exciting! quick heads up, the next update might take a little long than usual because I won't have much writing time for the next week but I promise the next chapter is on it's way asap!  
> I'd really like to take this time to thank my very good friend and trusty beta ChemmaCheese for always being there to support me and listen to me endlessly blab my plans for this fic and who patiently puts up with my constant fangirling (somebody give this girl a medal seriously). She is rather amazing and I really appreciate all her help, interest and support in my writing. (Thank you so much chummy!)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh! Sorry this update has taken so long! I've had a rather busy week, but hey, at least Chapter 8 is finally up!  
> So, with that, hope you enjoy!

The bed was still warm and that was a fact Keith hated; another thing he hated was how empty the small twin bed felt. His whole room seemed to reflect the helplessly empty feeling that made his stomach churn. Curled up in the same spot he and Lance had been sharing not even half an hour previously, he had no clue what the time was and how many lessons he had missed already- and frankly he couldn’t care less.

Had Lance seen his scars? Probably not, if so, he never said anything anyway. That was quietly reassuring Keith but that alone was not enough to stop the steady stream of tears that were spilling from his rubbed-red eyes. If he hadn’t seen them, Lance still had time to judge him, be disgusted by him and leave him like everybody else. No matter how much he tried to keep people by his side, people always seemed to discard him like a piece of over-chewed gum. Surely the playful sea of blue would find it’s backwash and retreat eventually, leaving him on the miserable grey sands. And even when someone like Lance came along, he only pushed them away more.

Keith’s balled fists clenched as he closed his eyes tightly shut, his knees resting against his chest, the sheets discarded at the side of the bed of red. All he could think was blue but all he could see was red and somehow it was painful. He missed the blue jeans, the blue vans, the blue jumper and the blue eyes. The thought would not leave him alone and he wanted Lance back to hug him and make everything alright again even if it was only for a little while.  The cranes above him danced in the breeze that flowed through the open window, below him all the world looked tiny and unimportant, exactly how Keith felt.

It took a while for him to regain the strength to get up, when he did feel ready, he walked shakily to the fridge and popped a pot noodle in the microwave. He pressed the buttons and closed the door, he left the dimly lit spinning cup to cook as he wandered to his door, which he stood with his back against it until he slumped down to the floor. His shaking hands grasped his knees loosely while his heavy head fell forward. More tears dribbled down his flushed cheeks like forks of lightning. The usually inaudible splatter of tears on carpet made a strange plop sound. Instinctively, his head jolted and noticed the scrap of now damp note paper that lay beside him. Without hesitation he picked it up and unfolded it.

_‘Keith I know whatever I did hurt you and I’m not sure what it was but I want you to know I’m sorry and if you want to talk, text me on this number:’_

Below the note was his number and the same sketchy L from the note before with a small doodle of his sad puppy dog face and a slice of pizza. Keith let out a small breathy laugh, wiping the tears off his cheeks. He stood up, moved to his desk, placed the note down and picked up his phone. The unexpected ping of the microwave made Keith jump, almost dropping the phone onto the floor mid type. It didn’t take long to grab the noodles and sit back down on the bed and text the number on the note.

**Lance, It’s me. I’m sorry I did that. I’m not really in a good place as of late but don’t worry about me it’s fine. Thanks anyway.**

**-1:34pm**

The shower had made Lance sleepy again, there was no point going to the last class of the day so he had decided to rest before his usual shift. Once he changed into some of _his_ casual clothes, he exited the steamy shower room, dumping the other clothes on the floor by the foot of his bed. His phone resting on the bed had the blue notification light flashing; he dived at it, swooping it up in his hands and checking his messages at record speed and time. He had to read it, reread it and reread it again to be 100% sure that it was an actual genuine message from the weeping boy he had left behind in the dorm room earlier that day. His racing mind finally caught up with him and he saved the number in his phone. His thumbs moved clumsily over the screen typing a response.

**Well, hello to you too me. I thought you’d never call, well, text I guess ^w^**

**-Lance 1:37pm**

**Lance, I really appreciate you trying to be light hearted and cheer me up but now’s not the time and that won’t work so, please don’t.**

**-Keith 1:38pm**

Lance received the reply so quickly he was sure Keith had written it before Lance had even replied. His face fell when he read the response. _Shit._

**Ok, really, really sorry, man, I guess I suck in these situations. Urgh. I’m sorry. Like, I don’t know what to do, I’m sorry. I usually just make stupid jokes and don’t deal with the serious stuff.**

**-Lance 1:42pm**

**That’s fine, I understand. First tip, STOP SAYING SORRY TO EVERYTHING.  Say it once and that’s enough, I get it :3**

**-Keith 1:43pm**

**Okay sorry.**

**-Lance 1:43pm**

**SHIT**

**-Lance 1:43pm**

**Fml seriously >_>**

**-Lance 1:44pm**

Keith couldn’t help but giggle at Lance’s strangely characteristic style of texting. He was an absolute dork and he couldn’t even hide it over message.

**Haha idiot.**

**-Keith 1:44pm**

**Thx**

**-Lance 1:45pm**

**_-Lance changed the nickname for Keith to Keithikins  ;3-_ **

Keith almost choked on the pot-noodles mid-chew. Lance _really_ was pushing him today.

 

**Ffs! Just because you have my number doesn’t mean you can abuse the privilege by being a complete ass. Also, you know I’m not afraid to beat the crap out of you next time I see you.**

**-Keithikins ;3 1:46pm**

**You love it really ;p**

**-Lance 1:47pm**

**I really don’t… :/**

**-Keithikins ;3 1:47pm**

**I bet you secretly do ;))**

**-Lance 1:48pm**

Keith didn’t want to give the cocky bastard on the other line the satisfaction of being right so he did the only thing he could think of.

**_-Keithikins ;3 changed the nickname for Lance to Prick with Pizza-_ **

**Nah, I’m good now >:)**

**-Keithikins ;3 1:49pm**

**Okay, okay. Damn, alright. Nice to know how much you hate me -^-**

**-Prick with Pizza 1:50pm**

**Shut up, you know I don’t hate you, we ate pizza and watched the best film in the world together. Totally don’t do that with just anyone.**

**-Keithikins ;3 1:51pm**

**Yeah but don’t forget you totally kicked me out.**

**-Prick with Pizza 1:51pm**

**Keith?**

**-Prick with Pizza 1:54pm**

**Keith, fuck, did I piss you off again? I shouldn’t have mentioned it should I? It’s my fault again isn’t it? Are you ignoring me on purpose? You’re scaring me please don’t do this to me. Please please please. I’m so sorry, please talk to me.**

**-Prick with Pizza 1:55pm**

**_-Keithikins ;3 changed the nickname for Lance to Princess Pizzaprick ;p –_ **

**OHHH MY FUCK, DID YOU JUST SERIOUSLY DO THAT!?!?**

**-Princess Pizzaprick ;P 1:57pm**

**SUCK IT, MCCLAIN. Plus you love me really ;p >;)) <3**

**-Keithikins ;3 1:57pm**

Lance took a long deep breath accompanied by a sigh. Keith had won this round but sure as hell Lance wouldn’t let it happen again. Or maybe he would, maybe once to see Keith’s smug little face.

 

*****

 

Lance went back to his lessons the next day but Keith still needed another day to just pull himself together a bit more. Lance walked by his dorms after class (because it was his day off) and dropped him off a hot chocolate and that day’s notes from class then returned the navy jumper that he may or may not have worn again _multiple times_. That weekend saw at least 1000 texts back and forth between Lance and Keith, mocking each other, joking about each other and talking about life and food. Even on Lance’s long tiresome weekend shifts, his phone would make several extended appearances when the pizza place was particularly quiet during the daytime.

There was limited work gossip as per usual, the small café next to them was closing down very soon and Shiro, Hunk and Pidge were discussing what they thought might take its place; all the while, Lance sat behind the counter giggling like a small child. Pidge had spotted him on Sunday and had said _“Lance you’re being weird again. My god if you’re talking to Keith- You are, aren’t you! Unbelievable.”_ which grabbed the attention of the whole group. They completely interrogated Lance as if he was some sort of suspicious criminal. Everyone from Allura and Hunk to Coran and Shiro were interested in Lance’s _‘new boy on the scene’_ and the whole Lance/Pidge bet situation. It was incredibly awkward talking about Keith to the others like he was just some prize the he had to win, it felt dirty and wrong and made him sick to his stomach.

After the 2 long days, he made sure to take the longer route home just so that he could walk past Keith’s. On Saturday he only stood outside and admired the fact that he was so close to Keith yet Keith didn’t even know and on the Sunday he was walking past when a familiar figure crouched by the glass door with a lit cigarette in his hand came into view. Keith approached Lance first but the chat was only brief due to the fact Lance needed to get home and rest before their first lesson in the morning and the cigarette smoke was getting to his lungs pretty quickly and made him feel quite queasy. When he finally reached his own flat, he saw that the mess had decreased immensely meaning that Hunk must have already gone home for Thanksgiving early. Lance, of course, had been told this multiple times and yet still managed to forget it anyway. Many texts went back and forth between the pair that night until they both eventually drifted off.

Monday morning came with the sudden wave of lectures and coursework and assignments that hit them both like a bucket of cold water. Throughout every class, Lance would continue to make a complete ass of himself, as per usual, occasionally looking over as the boy hiding behind all the fluffy black hair who was trying to actually concentrate and listen, incredibly; though, Keith would be lying if he didn’t say his gaze kept wandering across the room until it fell upon the boy in the blue and white baseball shirt a few seats away. Occasionally their wandering eyes met with an awkward smirk accompanied by some funny faces if their professor wasn’t looking.

During the middle of a particularly boring art history lesson, Lance and Keith decided (over some sneaky texts behind their professor’s back) to walk home together after their astrophysics class. The day moved rather slowly from then on, the dark grey clouds rolling over the town bringing a pretty heavy torrential downpour, but after that astrophysics class they were still determined to walk.

The rain was so heavy that they were soaked in a matter of seconds, Lance sacrificed his warm winter hoodie and placed it on Keith’s sad little sodden head. Avoiding the park, they got back to Keith’s dorm first- everything was going to be fine, they’d both go their separate ways and dry off.

However, life likes to throw curve balls and Monday the 21nd of November just happened to be the day that Keith left his keys in his room without realizing.

“Shit!” he hissed, rummaging through his bag furiously, viciously searching and messing up what _was_ his very organised bag. “Shit! no. no, no, no!!!!”

“What? What’s up?” Lance was so concerned for once that he actually moved from the pillar that he leaned so casually against. He had the urge to steal back to grey beanie that he had leant Keith the day before and now he was wearing it again, but he only thought it would pissed the frantic boy off more.

Keith looked up at him, his frown contorted and eyebrows knitted together. Everything about him oozed defeat and frustration. “Lance.”

The words he uttered were thick and full of emotion, so much emotion that Lance wanted just smother him and pet him like a sad little puppy (and yes, that was weird even to Lance). “Lance. My keys. I don’t- I can’t-” Keith waved his short arms around gesturing the door and bag until he threw them in the air with a sigh of annoyance. “I don’t have my keys! I must have left them this morning but, urghhh! I can’t get in and tomorrow I’m going back home for Thanksgiving and I can’t even get in! I have neighbours and they’re probably all gone and I don’t really know them!” Keith kept making groans and rubbing his hand up and down his face. Grabbing at his wrists, Lance stopped him, looking deep into his tear-swollen indigo eyes.

“Shh, it’s okay. We’ll call your complex and you can pick up the keys later but now we may as well go back to mine and get out of this fucking storm!!” he let go of the defenceless wrists and pulled at his own grey hoodie.

“O-okay.”

So they walked the very long trip of 7 whole minutes back to Lance’s in silence, completely focused on getting out of the rain as soon as possible. Once, they finally made their way down the street, they complex came into view. The metal building was older than Keith’s and in the more rundown part of town. It wasn’t sketchy or bad, just a bit shabby and unkempt- it reminded Keith a bit of the boy who lived there.

“So yeah, welcome to mi casa, I guess.” Lance laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck nervously as he unlocked the door. The latch clicked loudly and they both shuffled into the front hall, immediately stripping off their thoroughly soaked jackets, hats and scarves. Teeth chattering and bodies shivering, they legged it up the 4 flights of stairs (as Lance didn’t want to force Keith to get in the lift when he had already made it so clear that he had an extreme phobia of them).

Lance got to the room first, practically kicking the door open and throwing himself inside. Keith followed a fraction of a second behind, waddling his way down the corridor and through the threshold. Keith’s jaw dropped along with his bag. Lance’s room was disgustingly filthy and so unorganised that Keith wanted to rip his eyes out of their sockets before spending a good 3 hours sorting and placing every last pencil, plate and pair of underwear that were tossed carelessly across the floor. The room smelt like an explosion at the Lynx factory but that was the only thing Keith really didn’t mind at all, in fact it was somewhat comforting and warm.

Lance had noticed Keith’s shock and made an effort to mentally scold himself later. “Yeah, ah, sorry. Forgot you were kind of ocd…”

“I knew you were gross McClain but _this_ takes gross to a new disgusting level.”

“Oh, shut up will you! It’s not that bad. We may be messy, sure, but I’m not a total slob. I have basic hygiene and standards so don’t make me out as nasty-ass grubby sleaze-ball”

“Pfft whatever.” Keith shivered, turning his nose up with crossed arms. When his eyes opened he got quite a sight. In front of him, crouching in the mountain of clothes beside an open drawer, was a completely shirtless Lance McClain. Keith suddenly felt rather flustered and uncomfortable. He tried not to let out a gasp through his shivers and, luckily, was successful. Wide eyed, he watched in a weird mix of horror and thrill. Lances lanky body was more muscular than Keith would have imagined, not bulky but genuinely defined and toned; he was still slightly damp from the downpour and had small goose bumps scattered across his bare skin. Lance’s teeth were still chattering violently as he hunted through the chest. Finally, he grabbed a white tank top and put it on. Sure, it wasn’t warm but at least it wasn’t wet or dirty. Seconds later, a blue and white baseball shirt flew toward Keith, he caught it in one hand.

“There, it probably will be a bit big, but hey, it’s dry.”

Keith’s heart sank. Lance wanted Keith to wear the t-shirt. A t-shirt with short sleeves, no jumpers to hide behind, no long sleeves.

“No!”  the words escaped Keith’s moth by accident. Suddenly the room became clammy, his head span and stomach churned. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He didn’t want this to happen.  Lance was someone he didn’t want to disgust or worry or scare off. Lance’s head whipped around in total surprise about the abrupt reply.

“What?”

“Oh! O-oh, ah, it’s okay, you really don’t have to. I’m fine. Can we just phone the complex?”

“What? Keith, are you kidding me!? You’re, one, clearly drenched and, two, absolutely freezing. I’m not letting you freeze. The phone call can wait.”

“I said I’m fine Lance.” _He was not fine._

“No you’re not” _and Lance could clearly see that too._

“I am! _Lance,_ seriously! I’ll be okay!”

“Keith, you’re going to catch a cold, or a chill or even worse, pneumonia- trust me pneumonia sucks ass and I’d prefer it to not be my fault if and when you get it.”

Keith felt the overwhelming emotion welling up inside him and suddenly it released in a short irrepressible burst.

“YOU KNOW WHAT LANCE! I SAID I WAS FINE OKAY. I DON’T NEED YOUR SHIRT OR YOUR HELP OKAY DON’T EVEN TRY AND FORCE ME ALRIGHT I’M FINE, I TOLD YOU I’M FINE.” Keith wasn’t quite sure how or why he just went off but Lance stood completely frozen as he watched a tear roll down his soft cheek, then another, and another.

“…K-Keith?” Lance was at a loss for words and was rather taken aback. He was not sure how to handle the situation but was damned determined to not fuck it up. “Okay. So, like I really, really want to believe you but clearly you’re not helping yourself here and all I want you to be is okay and as happy as you were the other night and I will not live with myself if I know there’s something that might harm you. So please just put on the shirt, it won’t hurt you, I just don’t want you to get ill.”

“But that’s what you don’t understand! It will hurt! Just leave me alone okay! You don’t know me Lance McClain don’t even try to act like you care!” His words were bitter and went straight to Lance’s weakened heart. It hurt, it hurt a lot, but her pursued, determined not to lose the fight.

“Keith, listen to me okay. I do care, actually! I care a lot!” Lance took a step towards Keith who had slumped onto his bed “I care so much that I will stand here and refuse to take your crap and refuse to leave you on your own. Sure I can be shitty and a bit of a dick, okay maybe a lot of a dick sometimes. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”  He took another step “You’re hurt and I want you to be safe and happy and if you get ill because you don’t take of a goddamn shirt I’ll be so pissed at myself for letting it happen. Sure it might be big, creased and identical to the one I was wearing this morning but I’d much rather you wear it than a massive woolly sweater that is carrying the same amount of water as a kids paddling pool!” Lance kneeled in front of the teary mess sat on his bed. Instinctively, his hand shot to Keith’s cheek and brushed away the trail of hot tears that had found their way there. Lance only usually did this when one of his siblings was upset or hurt, he’d seen it hundreds of times before and every time it broke his heart a little more.

Keith’s eyes waver to the floor, a million thoughts running through his mind screaming and scratching, wanting to be let free.

“Look at me.”

Suddenly, as if out of his control, Keith’s vision was Lance and all Lance with his soaking wet brown hair, perfect olive skin with tiny freckles dotted across his nose, cheeks and under his eyes, passionately sparkling navy eyes, dark eyebrows that knitted together when he frowned, the sharp shape of his long face and his angular features.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re afraid of but whatever it is, is just pointless, you’re a great guy despite the whole fact you’ve tried to kill me at least 3 times already and you’re actually quite scary for a small person, plus you’re funny and intelligent and quick-witted and damn your comebacks are fucking brilliant and you have a funny laugh and I like to see you smile when you’re happy because it’s like a tiny lake of gold dust that could disappear in the wind at any moment. Please, I don’t know or care what you’re hiding, I just want to know you’re not going to die from the cold and those wet clothes.” Lance broke eye contact as his hand fell from Keith’s cheek.

“Fine.”

Lance’s head rose in surprise, disbelief and relief. “I- um…J-just don’t look okay…”

“Okay?” Lance had no clue why Keith was so self-conscious but he respected his wishes all the same. With one step back, he turned faced the wall opposite. Keith peeled the sodden layers off his body exposing the red raw skin underneath. He slipped the soft, dry shirt over his head taking in it’s extra heat.

“Before you turn around again can you promise me something?” Keith’s cheeks flushed a deeper shade than before, his eyes wavering between the floor and Lance’s legs.

“Anything.” He replied with clear certainty.

“Please don’t let this change the way you see, treat and feel about me…”

“Never.” And with that, he turned.

Keith looked ashamed of himself, his closed body language and hanging head reflected fear and vulnerability. More tears made their way down his cheeks landing on the incredibly baggy shirt, his lap and his arms. Keith’s arms were quite a sight and Lance was shocked momentarily but he suddenly knew something very apparent, Keith was in pain and it wasn’t just physical and Lance didn’t want him to suffer alone. They weren’t very deep but they left hundreds of long trailing red scars and white bumps, Keith had his elbow cuffed with his opposite shaking hand.

His head was fuzzy with panic as Lance turned around. He felt the warm stream flowing from his eyes but sat there staring at his feet like they were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. Lance was the most silent Keith had ever seen him, it only worried him more. His shirt smelt strongly of cheap body spray and spices and this was something almost potent and intoxicating to Keith. Lance moved closer, Keith felt his presence shift towards him. That’s when a hand lifted his face by the chin, he looked up suddenly and saw a reassuring smile on Lance’s face. They were inches apart and both secretly ached to close it but neither really had the guts to do it. The world shifted from slow motion to super speed in a fraction of a second, Lance’s hand fell, their gaze lingering and the pearl beads of tears stained Keith’s tender cheeks.

“It’s okay, I may not understand right now, I might not know what’s up. You don’t have too tell me, I really don’t want to push you but all you need to know is that it’s okay, everything is okay and that I’m here.” Small hands wrapped around Lance’s waist, pulling him into a tight embrace.

Keith wasn’t sure how to feel or what to do, the only thing that made sense was burying his face in Lance’s chest and continue to cry the uncontrollable sentiment out of his system. Lance responded by hugging his head and slowly stroking his hair. Lance’s fingers made Keith’s head tingle as they dragged through his thick hair. It was a few minutes before either of them did anything, Keith was practically purring as Lance chin lifted from the top of his head.

“Y’know I changed into a dry expecting to _not_ have that soaked too.” Keith pushed Lance’s arm playfully with a feeble laugh. “Joking, joking!”

“Mmhmm…”

“How are you feeling?” Lance said softly as he took a step back.

“In all honestly, pretty shitty…” Keith’s eyes were fixed on a plate about 2 foot from Lance’s foot, the only thing on his mind was his thought-consuming need to smoke.

“Do you mind me asking a few questions? Like, I don’t want to be too intrusive and if you’re uncomfortable you can tell me to stop at any point.”

“Sure, I guess…”

“Do you still… um… like hurt yourself… like recently?” He tried putting his thoughts into the most sensitive phrase he could muster but it came out staggered and poorly formed.

“Well…” Keith wanted to lie, it would just be easier if he did but he trusted Lance and wanted him to trust him equally. “…Yes” the frosty words expelled from Keith’s throat lingering on his tongue, reverberating in the air.

“Oh. O-okay” Lance’s voice wavered, revealing a tiny scratch of emotion which no doubtedly made Keith want to hit his head against the wall. “Do you get help?”

“Nope. Tried it once when I was 15, it was pointless and I felt worse so I left it.”

“Do you want help?”

This question was kind of unexpected and caught Keith off guard. At first, he wasn’t sure of his reply but his curiosity pushed him to see what this new path would lead to.

“Hmm… Well, Maybe?”

“Tell me if this is a stupid idea or not but I want you to promise me something.”

“Huh?”

“Promise me you’ll stop for as long as you can, if you ever feel even the tiniest urge to do anything call me immediately, I don’t care if I’m in the shower, at work, at a party chatting up some college chick or asleep at 2am just call me, I’ll be there.” Keith wasn’t sure what to do, his eyes wide and mouth dropped in utter shocked. He knew it may not work, but there was no harm in trying.

“I’ll try.”

“You sure?” Lance took both of Keith’s hands in his, the warmth radiating between them.

“Yes.” Keith was avoiding his eye contact but Lance still smiled at him.

“Good.”

“Can I ask something?” Keith’s eyes were pulled to Lance’s almost as if they were magnets attracting.

“Anything.”

“Do you have any bandages?”

“I think so. Why?” The shift in his head was almost unnoticeable but Keith registered the small movement to the side as Lance’s hands moved off his own.

“It’s probably going to be easier if I hide them for now. So I don’t have to see them all the time.”

“Will that work?” Lance said hopefully.

“Probably not really but I want to try.”

With that Lance, ran to the cupboard and found the dusty first aid kit within minutes. He came back and sat down beside Keith holding the bandages with a small encouraging smile. As Lance wrapped the tort material over the cuts, Keith squirmed and squinted in discomfort. Lance constantly asked him whether he was okay but Keith just waved him off and told him to continue. It wasn’t long before both his arms were fully covered and Keith stood up like nothing had happened at all.

“I better call the concierge for the spare key.” Moving out the way, Lance smiled one of his stupid doughy-eyed smiles as Keith shuffled to the door, grabbing his phone as his exited.

 

*****

Keith re-entered the room and found Lance (In a new pair of blue jeans) holding a pair of grey sweats. After he had changed into them, he sat beside Lance who was laying on his bed scrolling through his phone.

“Okay so they said it was too late to collect them now but I can get them early tomorrow.”

“Thank Altea Hunk’s already gone home then, you can have his bed tonight.” Keith would have been lying if he said he wasn’t even a little disappointed because he kind of (well maybe really, really) wanted more cuddles.

“Yeah.”

“Oh! Yeah, I made you a green tea its behind you on the head board” he pointed up at the Lion King mug balancing on the frame.

“Wait, that’s my favourite, how did you remember?”

“Why would I forget? Just shut up and drink it, you need to warm up anyway.”

“Thanks.” The mug was warm in his mitten-less hands. Keith pulled his legs up onto the bed and into his chest so he was in line with Lance who had put down the phone and started staring at the ceiling.

“How are you feeling now?” Lance sat up staring at the puffy eyed, raven haired boy at his side.

“Well, I’m not too sure to be honest. Maybe a bit overwhelmed”

“Oh God! Did I make it worse?! I’m sorry I fuck everything up, oh my, Keith-” Lance was abruptly shut up by a hand covering his mouth.

“Shh. Firstly, _no_. Secondly, _no._ Finally, _no, no_ and _no._ ” Keith let him go. “You _actually_ helped so clearly you don’t fuck up all the time do you.”

“Okay. I suppose not.”

“Good.” He sighed, then took a sip of the hot beverage. “So I guess you might need a brief explanation as to why this…” he waved a hand over his arm. “…is a thing.”

“Only if you want to tell me and feel comfortable”

“It’s alright, I trust you anyway.”

Keith _trusted_ Lance. Lance had won his trust and he was sure it felt even more satisfying than winning the lottery.

It took Keith an hour or so to retell his exact experiences throughout childhood (leaving out the part where his mother still tried to contact him). _Lance cursed the day he ever made that stupid bet._ Keith was a human, he had problems, _a lot_ of problems, and Lance had gone and given him one more. He seriously cared about Keith and hearing the hurt in his voice while reliving each and every painful memory, broke his heart. Keith was incredibly strong, his tiny fingers tapped against the porcelain cup nervously the whole time. Lance was the most silent he’d been in days; sure, his own childhood had seemed like an endless hell but Keith’s story really made him appreciate his life a little bit more.

“Keith. I don’t kno-  I can’t-” Lance began but as soon as he did, his own troubles flooded back, plaguing his mind with unwanted memories. “That’s horrible, I’m so sorry. Nobody, no child, no one ever should have to deal with that. I thought I was strong but you, _you_ my friend, are the very definition of strength-” Keith looked over at the boy with a raised eyebrow. “-No! Don’t look at me like that! See I know I’m right. I almost died like…” It took him a moment to count on his hands “…erm, 7, 8, 9,… Ah, like 13 times and I swear you’re the bravest, nicest, coolest, strongest guy I know.”

“What?”

“What do you mean _‘what?’_?”

“You nearly died?” Keith’s head cocked in response to the gasp Lance let escape when he realized Keith was completely clueless.

“Yes!”

“ _What?”_

“Right, when I was really little, I was diagnosed with this lung problem. They thought it was just a normal case of bronchitis or maybe asthma first but as I grew up it got worse and worse and I was in and of out of hospital my whole childhood practically. They discovered I had a hereditary version of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or something along the lines of that. They didn’t suspect it because it usually only occurs in smokers over the age of 35 but somehow I managed to get it. I have this super rare protein deficiency and being in a house full of 5 smokers I managed to get this disease somehow from second hand smoke. Long story short, I had constant chest infections and when I got pneumonia couple of times things started to fail and we were like 100% sure I wouldn’t live ‘til my 16th birthday. The hospital was my home and I never really got a chance to live as a child. I felt like such a burden to my entire family who were already poor and didn’t need the medical bills of a son that probably would stop breathing entirely at some point.”

“Oh my God. I’ve been smoking around you! That’s why you don’t come near me when I smoke. I am such an inconsiderate idiot. Are you okay??”

“Well, it wasn’t pleasant but hey you didn’t know so it’s cool man.”

“Okay but just saying I’m never going to pick up one of those sticks of Satan any more” Keith put his empty mug on the side.

“Good because coughing your lungs up to the point you can’t breathe is horrible.”

“Noted.”

“Look at us, we’re a right pair aren’t we.” Lance laughed, gaining Keith’s attention, Keith laughed in agreement. Once the laughter dwindled, their eyes opened at the exact same time resulting in mesmerised gazes.

“I-I guess we are.” Keith said through a sudden yawn; Lance checked his phone.

“It’s like 9:30, if you’re getting up early, you should probably rest.”

Keith nodded and dragged himself to the bed on the other side of the room. Lance rushed around the room, closing the curtains and turning out the lights, drowning the room in blackness.

“Lance?” Keith mumbled quietly, staring at the ceiling with a smirk.

“Yes Keith?” He replied, climbing into his own bed.

“Are those glow in the dark stars?”

“Yeah? so what, plus, we both know I never grew up.”

“No but you’ve arranged them in the same constellations as the winter time northern hemisphere.”

“I’m glad you noticed. So what?”

“You’re a nerd.” With that, Keith flipped over and closed his contently smug eyes leaving Lance to grumble to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so ohmiigod that took bloody ages and was quite draining to write but I hope you enjoy this labour of love.  
> Thank you all for all your positivity and comments and love ahhh!! I love you guys you're all so lovely and your comments make me so genuinely happy when I read them. This fic is a pure joy to write and I hope you're enjoying it as much as I enjoy writing it.  
> Also, a big thank you to my incredibly patient beta Chem who is subjected to my constant bombardment of messages and updates and my completely insane blabbering throughout geography class and lunch which I am sure has made all of our friends and people sat on our geography table think we're totally nuts (well, we are but still).  
> Thank you everyone for your support and positivity!


	9. Chapter 9

Light. It illuminated the room in a brief flash that startled the brunet to the point where he bolted upright in his bed. The fuzziness of sleep that still hung around in his head was soon destroyed by an almighty thunder clap that echoed in to small room which was pitch black to the boy whose eyes hadn’t quite gotten used to the light deprived habitat. The sound that followed crackled and shook the window panes, drowning out the heavy blast of bullet like rain that hit the building at top speed.

“ _Shit._ ” He muttered in disbelief, rubbing the leftover sleep from his eyes. A cower from the corner of the room got his attention so fast that he could have gotten whiplash from the sudden speed his body moved with. “…Keith?” Lance muttered almost unsure of his surroundings. A small cry in response whimpered over the rhythmic rain hammering against the window. Lance span around, twisting his upper body until he could see the silhouette of the boy huddled in the corner of the bed.  Another flash irradiated his pale face unevenly as it flickered. His teary violet eyes were as wide as a full moon on a clear night, his body was shaking violently and his breathing was heavy and rapid. Immediately, Lance sprang to his feet, clumsily navigating his way around the messy floor, practically falling onto the other bed after tripping over a dangerously placed text book the size of 3 average phonebooks. Lance’s stumbling accompanied with the loud ominous rumbling outside sent the other boy’s panic level through the roof, his hyperventilating steadily increasing at a worrying pace.

“Keith!?” Lance said softly, his eyebrows dipping and mouth falling into a concerned frown. “Hey...? Kid...? Can you hear me? Keith?!” his hands found their way to the shoulders of the shaking boy whose fear-filled eyes were locked on the drawn curtains. Lance shook Keith’s frail body in an attempt to get any sort of response, however, it was unsuccessful. Keith’s clear panic made Lance even more worried about him. The next bolt of lightning sent the room into a brief purple wash, Keith’s frightened face stained with more tears. “Shh, shhh, shhh, now.” Lance whispered gently, trying to calm the situation. “I’ve got you, it’s okay, nothing can hurt us, it’s only a little thunder and lightning.”

Lance’s room shone like photo had been taken, this only caused Keith to wince as if he was in pain, all the while Lance tried everything from reassuring words to stroking his fluffy hair. Keith was no different to a small restless child who didn’t know how to handle an unpleasant situation; and, as good as Lance was with kids, he didn’t think he had the strength to keep going like he was, he was already too emotionally drained and sleep deprived. The crackling of thunder split through the air, _Lance had to admit that that strike had been a pretty terrifying clap,_ and it had resulted in Keith flying into Lances unsuspecting arms; the boy was greeted warmly by lance’s body heat as it immediately engulfed him.

Gripping tightly to the thin white material of Lance’s tank top, Keith buried his head in the crook of Lance’s neck. Lance leaned into the boy whose head fitted so well next to his own, he rested his bony chin on Keith’s shaking shoulder. The curtains hardly masqueraded the bright flashes, but when Keith was concealed in the depths of the cinnamon spiced apple scent and smooth tanned skin, he could see nothing and then his breathing began to slowly regulate. Lance’s awkwardly long arms, found a comfortable home enclosing Keith’s entire body and for once he didn’t seem oddly out of proportion.

“It’s okay.” Lance whispered so quietly it was almost just a quiet breath. Keith could feel the tiny movements and reverberations in Lance’s throat as he spoke, his skin erupted in a sea of goose bumps and chills as Lance’s voice tingled in his ears. He let out a small whimper as a reply, Lance’s arms tightened around him. The claps of thunder were becoming more and more spaced apart meaning it would probably pass in a while.

“Keith?”

“mm…?” His voice was muffled by layers of shirt and skin. Lance paused before replying, Keith moved his head back leaving them practically face to face.

“I’m really tired.” he finally said mid yawn. Lance’s yawn was mostly hidden by the back of his left hand but Keith noticed the way his freckled nose creased and twitched as if he was a rabbit.

“Oh…”  he said between sniffles, still shaking like a leaf.

“How you doing?” Keith only shrugged and wiped his eyes. A singular surprise clap of thunder made both boys jump in unison. “Okay! So that probably wasn’t the best question-” Keith nodded frantically.

Lance’s mind wandered, he became hyper-aware of their surrounding and their movements. It was made 100x worse we he remembered they weren’t even on his own bed; _Hunk was going to kill Lance if he ever found out about this._ If there was 1 thing of Hunk’s you didn’t mess with, it would probably be his bed and a close second would probably be food and or books.

Keith had suddenly become a mess again, losing the ability to do everything except cry, hyperventilate and shake. It was only then that Lance had, what he deemed to be, a decent idea. Swiftly, his arms hooked under Keith’s knees and around his waist, using his strength, he lifted the fragile boy off the bed and stood up with him in his arms. Immediately, the boy pulled himself closer, easing the weight, making Keith less difficult for Lance to lift.

He tiptoed around the mess in silence as Keith hopelessly clung to his neck, burying his head in Lance’s shoulder. Lance tried his best to reassure him, whispering words of comfort to him. The words were fuzzy to Keith, who’s head was filled with darkness and fear, but their fluidity flowed like syrup and the pleasant sounds slowly ate away at the darkness.

“I need to grab something off the side, are you holding on tight enough?” Keith readjusted his arms, pulling himself as close to Lance as he could, head almost melting to the boy’s swan-like neck. Lance moved his arm from Keith waist in order to snatch both their phones of the desk, replacing the arm once he had done so.

“I have another idea.” Lance declared as he sat on his own bed (so Hunk had no reason whatsoever to flip out when he came back) and put Keith in his lap. Lance picked up his phone and waved it triumphantly, letting the headphones dangle from it. “Let’s drown out this stupid thunder.” He smiled proudly as he picked up a dual headphone adaptor. “We can listen to mine, or yours I guess, I don’t mind”

Now, usually Keith would have picked his over anything because he was not going to listen to anyone’s shitty music choices but he much preferred enduring whatever Lance would subject him to instead of Lance sitting through his obscure music judging him silently; plus, Keith was also incredibly curious to see what Lance liked (because a boy with a good music taste is very important, apparently). He shuffled awkwardly in-between Lances gangly, thin legs as he thought.

“Yours.” He said with the most power he could muster (which was nearly none).

“You sure?” Lance whispered right as another crashing blot illuminated the room.

“YESYESYESJUSTDOITNOW.” Keith’s words were rushed and almost inaudible over the thunder that followed them. Lance threw him his own red headphones that he had plugged into the adaptor.  In a flash they were in his ears and Lance shuffled his playlist. It started off quite tame, some old Beyoncé songs that Keith vaguely remembered and felt indifferently about, some rowdy Spanish songs that Lance chanted every word to- which made Keith giggle-, a newish Lady Gaga song that Keith had never heard of which made Lance trash about, pulling stupid faces and poses and so on. After putting up with Lance’s shit attempt at dancing sat down to ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’, that saw Keith crowned as the apparent _‘dancing queen’_ according to Lance, despite the fact he was no longer 17 and he only felt the beat from the tambourine a little, Keith snatched the blue phone when he saw an open opportunity.

“Hey!” Lance protested playfully trying to grab it back.

“Nope, you’re letting me choose next.”

“Fiiiineeee” he whined as he slumped back against the bed frame. Lance took the phone back when Keith couldn’t put the password in, he unlocked it and handed it back, letting him control the music.

Keith scrolled down his music playlist curiously.

“Seriously? _S Club 7?”_

“Uh- excuse me! There’s nothing wrong with S Club 7!” Lance argued only semi-seriously over the quiet, temporary Ke$ha song that continued to play while Keith scrolled. Many more artists and songs scrolled past, a majority of it Beyoncé and Destiny’s Child, there were some occasional Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls songs every so often, his music seemed to predominantly consist of pop and hip hop from the previous 20 years.

“Huh, wha- wait?!? Lance do you have the _entire_ fucking Shrek soundtrack?!” Keith arched an eyebrow, glaring at Lance in disbelief.

“Yep, all 4, ‘ _Shrek is love, Shrek is life’_ after all… In all fairness, it was a prank my friends Pidge and Hunk played on me when I left my phone in their chem class a few weeks ago. Pidge, who is like a mega tech genius (Or nerd really I suppose) thought it would be funny to hack into my phone and fill it with Shrek memes, the one thing I kept to remember the occasion was the music they downloaded onto it.” Lance’s face completely lit up with the memories. The way he smiled and laughed with a soppy expression as he reminisced literally warmed Keith’s heart, making him smile too.

“Wow you sound like a meme dream team.” Keith rolled his eyes and continued to scroll while Lance leaned back and laughed a heavy laugh.

“Well, only the spiciest and dankest.” He winked sending Keith’s stomach into a sequence of summersaults.

“Whatever you say Lancey-boy.” He said flatly as he scrolled passed a familiar name. He scrolled back up to do a double-take and see if his eyes were deceiving him.

“What did you just call-”

“OH MY-! Lance?! You like the Killers!?!” Keith’s speech was quick and full of excitement as he clicked on the first song in the playlist.

“Oh yeah, I forgot I had those, wow.” Lance said, shrugging with a smile as Keith sat astounded and incredibly happy. The rare, genuine Keith smile had made a reappearance and Lance was so grateful that he hadn’t gone through deleting old songs off his phone recently. The way Keith looked in that moment, messy black bed head, eyes full of joy, wide smile tugging on his lips, baggy borrowed clothes, small features, the way he was sat and literally everything else about the Keith that was in front of him made his head spin with 1000 different versions of the same emotion. Lance wanted to grab him and kiss him, finally make everything perfect, he could do it, do it right then and there but something in his mind stopped him, maybe it wasn’t the right time yet? Lance couldn’t quite tell but all he knew is that now wasn’t the time.

A familiar tune rang through both sets of headphones as ‘When You Were Young’ began to play. Keith was almost as excited as he was when watching Labyrinth.

“ _Altea_ , I love this song so fucking much.” Keith said as he closed his eyes immersing himself in the indie-rock paradise that made his brain so happy.

Lance’s mind was suddenly sent back to the summer between his sophomore and junior year and the girl and the band and the memories he hadn’t thought about for a long time.

“Mm, yeah.” Lance sighed.

“Lance? You alright?”

“Huh?” Lance’s eyes shifted back to Keith, whose face had dropped back to a concerned pout. “Oh, yeah, it’s nothing, just some old memories I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Lance began, unsure how much or how little he should tell Keith. “It all started back in a small town in Nevada. A small boy with big dreams and an even bigger family trying to break out and do what he loved even if it killed him- _literally._ In my sophomore year, I was slowly getting better (or at least I thought I was at the time) so I decided to follow my passion and fulfil my dreams of being a singer and or lead guitarist in a band. It was all I wanted for a long time. I worked my ass off, auditioning for like 12 bands, until one day I heard some guys in my brother’s class were looking for a singer. I went to their house, we played a few covers, one of those just happened to be ‘Miss Atomic Bomb’ and that was the song that earnt me a fronting role in the band ‘The Blue Stars’. We did alright, we had a few gigs at schools and parties, I met lots of attractive people and got lots of attention, I loved it. From January to July 2013 I lived my life onstage singing and playing to crazy audiences and having fun but one day it all changed. For a few months I kinda fancied the bassist, I was respectful, I flirted with her a lot and she seemed to flirt back so the playful banter continued. Her name was Nyma, she was tall, blonde and stunning like a runway model, she came from eastern Europe and spoke with a seriously sexy accent. On her 17th birthday, my drunk 15-year-old ass pursued her for the first time. The next morning, we woke up next to each other unsure of what happened and basically decided to become a thing. It was great until mid-May where I developed a bit of a crush on the lead guitarist, Rolo, he was also quite a fine piece of ass too but hey I kept that a secret, supressed my feelings and stayed loyal to my girl- as you do. As June began, my condition worsened and it really effected my singing, it got so bad that holding notes felt like a fire in my chest. By my 16th birthday, I’d been with Nyma since April and at my own party I saw her and Rolo together behind my back. I was furious but didn’t have the heart to confront her. We stayed together all summer but the relationship was icy despite me still being stupidly in love with her. She stabbed me in the back repeatedly so many times and still I chased after her like she was the best thing in the world. When I finally got to Junior year, I’d made my condition so bad due to all the vocal exhaustion and cigarette smoke from rehearsals and gigs, that I became hospitalized again. She never visited me once and when my brother came to visit one day, he told me that she and Rolo had run off together to Los Angeles and it was unlikely I’d ever see them again. I was her Mr. Brightside and she was my Miss Atomic Bomb but little did I know was that when she exploded, nothing would be safe from the blast.”

“Oh…” Keith had sat and watched the twisted emotions contort Lance’s usually cheery face into a new dark shade of sorrow and pain. “I-I’m sorry Lance that’s awful, I’ll change the so-”

“No, keep it on. It been like 3 years, I’m over it. Besides, you’re the one who’s been a crying wreck today, I want to see you happy and that was doing the trick just fine.” The small yet pain-filled smile found it’s way back to Lance’s face.

“You sure?” Keith asked, Lance nodded at him giving a feeble, forced smile. Keith had become tense again, Lance hated the thought that he spoiled his chance to watch Keith being so natural and comfortable and happy. 2 more songs played before Keith paused it again.

“Lance?” There were a few questions that had been swirling around his mind for a while. Ever since Lance had mention his band, Keith had become awkward. His internal cringing was beginning to become more physical than he liked.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Do you still play?”

“Huh?”

“Do you, like, still play guitar or did you give it up?” Lance’s eyes flickered as if he did know what to say or how to say it.

“Um, well, I used to pick it up and tune it when I was bored but I haven’t played a guitar for a long while. When I moved out, I left my electric at home, I have my acoustic here but I haven’t played it for at least a year.”

“Oh, okay.” Keith smiled as he checked the time on Lances phone. _3:27am._ They had lost track of time, the storm had ended a little while ago but neither boy had really realized. When Keith got too tired, he forced the phone back onto Lance who picked the last few songs before they both had fallen asleep.

*****

Keith was awoken promptly by his ringtone. He lifted his head from Lance’s chest, the night before was a bit of a dazed blur and he wasn’t sure how it had ended or whether it had all been a dream; the one thing he did know was that he had (quite clearly) fallen asleep in Lance’s lap, on Lance’s bed, in Lance’s room and was now using the boy himself as a weird Lance-shaped mattress.

Without thinking about it too much, he reached for his phone and saw his Grandma’s caller ID. He answered and cautiously put the phone to his ear.

“Hey grandma.” Keith, pulled himself off the sleeping boy, groggily whispering into the receiver, trying to not wake him up.

“Keith, are you alright?”

“Yep, you?” His responses were slow and drawn-out as he shuffled around the room, collecting up his belonging as he went.

“No! I’ve called your dorm phone 5 times and you didn’t pick up!  What are you doing!? Please tell me you haven’t passed out in a ditch again!” Her shrill, accent heavy voice was harsh and disappointed.

“No, no, no I’m fine, I just went over to a friend’s last night.” Like hell was he going to tell her about the keys, she would never let him live it down. By this point, he had collected everything that way his and put them in his, still slightly soggy, school bag. He sat beside Lance’s sleeping body, his bag open at his feet.

“Altea, Keith that better not be some cover up for a weird sexual thing-”

“Ew! Grandma! NO!” Keith’s grandma hard pretty much no boundaries which was more of a curse than a blessing most of the time.

“-because frankly I don’t want to know what you get up to with those deviant college boys.”

“Then don’t bring it up! I literally stayed ‘round a friend’s house last night, is that okay?!”

“Whatever you say.”

Days like this, she really got on Keith’s nerves while also managing to embarrass him and make him incredibly uncomfortable simultaneously and he hadn’t even gotten on the plane home yet- that _had_ to be some sort of record! Luckily, his protests hadn’t woken up Lance, who was still quietly snoring beside him. Keith’s hand found the top of Lance’s, where it lingered.

“Keith!? Can you hear me!?” He immediately snapped out his Lance-trance and remembered that he was actually on the phone to his grandmother.

“Oh yeah, sorry, what?”

She mumbled something away from the phone that sounded a bit like ‘ _idiot boy’_ but Keith wasn’t too sure “I _said_ what time plane are you getting?”

“Right, yeah, the 1pm one, I think.”

“Have you left yet?”

“No it’s only like 6am! I’m still at my friend’s house but I’ll leave soon. I’m packed and I just need to catch a bus to the airport.”

“Okay well I’ll collect you at 3:40 then.”

“Actually, Grandma don’t worry about it, I’ll get a cab. Save the fuel money and then you don’t have to sit in lots of traffic, I’ll be at yours at like half 4.”

“Are you sure?!” She seemed pretty shocked and disheartened at his refusal.

“Yes. I’ll see you then”

“Okay then Keith, see you later.”

“Bye Grandma.”

“Goodbye, dear.”

Keith hung up with a sigh and gazed dreamily at the way Lance’s face twitched while he slept. That’s when he hatched a genius idea.

 

*****

 

It had only been a few hours since Keith had left the room, when Lance finally woke up. He rubbed his eyes, expecting to find the other boy purring on his chest like a cat but instead was greeted by absolute nothing accompanied by a gaping feeling of disappointment. The truth hit him like a ton of bricks, Keith had already left and he was most likely on his way home and he hadn’t even spoken to him before he let, sure they might have fallen asleep on each other, literally that night, but that was different.

Lance pulled himself off the bed, knowing fully well that there was still 1 day of lessons before the official allocated 5 days off for Thanksgiving began. Luckily, his parents had payed for his flights so that he could return home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas that year. One of the many things about college that sucked, was the fact that he rarely saw his family and getting an opportunity to see them twice in 2 months was something he really was looking forward to.

Not taking too long to get ready, Lance was about to head to Skyships to get a decent (yet still stupidly overpriced) morning coffee, when he saw something on top of his bag that was slouched against the door. His jaw dropped in disbelief at the red piece of paper.

On Keith’s departure, he had left Lance his own red paper crane that he had quickly made with the emergency origami paper that he kept in his bag. Lance picked it up carefully, noticing smudgy black scribbles on the wings, he stared at it carefully and made out Keith’s neat loopy handwriting.

_‘Sorry I had to leave without saying thank you or goodbye, you were so peaceful and clearly exhausted from last night and I didn’t want to wake you up. Thank you for putting up with my shit this week, I really appreciate it. Y’know you can be a pretty decent guy (even if your music choices are questionable).  I noticed you eyeing my cranes the other day and thought you’d might like your own’_

Beneath the writing was a small K with some pretty, detailed flowers around it. Lance’s heart sank at the thought of the bet. Keith still was completely unaware of why Lance had tangled himself in his troubled life yet and he hoped and yearned and prayed that Keith may never ever find out because he couldn’t stand the thought of what might happen next.

He put the bird safely in his bag alongside his work clothes and left for school, that idea of coffee still sounding rather appealing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, today I've been off sick from school so I decided to get on with Chapter 9 and actually finished it by lunchtime!  
> So, here it is!  
> Chapter 9 was actually inspired by 2 massive thunderstorms that happened last week. Like Keith, I'm incredibly astraphobic so they weren't the most enjoyable of experiences. The first hit in the middle of my math class and I pretty much freaked out and cried while everyone just watched me have a breakdown, the next happened 2 days later at like 1am and I had a full on panic attack for about 3 hours but I played music as loud as I could and read/wrote fanfic to pass the time, that day I went to school with literally 40 minutes of sleep and maybe a litre of coffee in my system (I don't even like coffee either, I was just desperate and exhausted).  
> I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and the whole story so far, I really love writing and planning it! I would also really like to appreciate and thank every single one of you who have read, enjoyed, shared, bookmarked, commented and left kudos on this fic, it's really encouraging and gives me the drive to keep going. I'd like to especially thank everyone who has left a positive comment, reading all your lovely thoughts, feelings and praise has really cheered me up after a particularly crap week and I hope you enjoy this and the rest of the chapters ahead! ^w^


	10. Chapter 10

Keith’s journey hadn’t been that insufferable, the cab driver on the way to the airport had been kind of sketchy and the plane had only been showing shitty chick-flicks (which Keith don’t want to admit to actually enjoying, even though he secretly did). He had picked up his luggage pretty quickly and headed out to his next taxi. Like expected, there was a driver with a sign that read ‘Kirkman’, Keith approached him, lugging his travel case with one hand and holding a large bouquet of fresh yellow and orange dahlias in the other.

Once they got everything in the cab and set off, Keith finally took out his phone for the first time in 4 or 5 hours. It had died while walking home from Lance’s and it had been charging ever since. The time was 3:26, he was going to be really early. Logging into the phone, he decided to call his grandma and warn her of his arrival, that was until he turned off aeroplane mode and was bombarded with buzzing notification.

**-** **_16 missed calls from Princess Pizzaprick ;p (Contact:- Lance McClain)-_ **

**_-7 Voicemails missed-_ **

**_-3 Text messages from Princess Pizzaprick ;p (Contact:- Lance McClain)-_ **

With a sigh, he ignored the messages and immediately dialled his cell number.

“Lance?” Keith shuffled awkwardly on the black leather seat, his small suitcase beside his feet on the floor. He spoke quietly and awkwardly as he tried to avoid any unnecessary conversations with the driver later on in their ride.

“Keithikins!!” Lance strolled his usual way to work, past the park and through the high-street.

Keith pinched the bridge of his nose with his unoccupied hand “Urghh that’s even worse out loud!”

“Don’t deny it Keithikins, you love it really.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You bet!” Lance laughed so loud that the cold air collided with his warm breath, expelling a large puff of white vapour.

“What do you want?”

Lance had to wrack his brain for a fitting response, but instead gave in to the question that had set some sort of mental barrier on his mind. “What do you mean?”

“You called me like 20 times!? What’s wrong!?”

“Oh! Right! Well,  what at did you expect!? Dude, you Cinderella’d me!” Keith could hear the playful hurt in Lance’s voice as he spoke.

“Uh, yeah sorry man, I was running out of time.” He laughed into his hand awkwardly.

“And you call me the princess, pfft yeah right pretty boy!”

“Fuck off”

“You loveee meee reallyyyyy!!!~” Lance said in a melodic sing-song voice.

“Whatever, pizza boy.”

“Anyways, how’s NY doing?”

“Well I’ve been here for literally 10 minutes, but it seems pretty usual to me. I’ve got a while; I’m almost at Floral Park now, I think, it’s only a 25-minute drive on a good day.”

“Ah fair enough.”

“You get back home tomorrow, right?”

“Yes indeed-ee, I leave campus tomorrow at 5am and I should land at Reno-Tahoe International at 1pm and if I’m lucky I might get to Carson City by 1:35, I hope my dad might pick me up if he’s home.” Keith giggled in reply. “Wait… Keith… Holy crap, _wow…_ ”

“What?”

“Tomorrow we will be like 3000 miles away from each other. This morning we were huddled together, tomorrow there will be like a 40-hour drive between us.” Keith sat in silence at the end of the line, letting the fact sink into his head. What Lance had said was true and that kind of hurt to think about.

“Urgh, stop. That’s really... uh- _weird?_ ”

“Sorry, it’s just crazy to think about like, psssfffh, mind-blowing” Keith could practically hear Lance spitting through the phone in a bad attempt to impersonate an explosion noise.

“I couldn’t tell if you were trying to mimic a broken exhaust pipe, a flushing toilet or just a very shit explosion.”

“Rude. Look, I’m standing outside work like a fucking idiot and it’s getting kind of cold so I’ll call you or text you or video chat you later, okay?”

“Yeah, have fun Pizza Princess.”

“Nah, that name’s already taken by a girl called Allura. I can be Prince Lancelot of Pizzas.” Lance sounded positively proud of the nickname.

“Pretty sure Lancelot was a knight but whatever, dude.” All of his pride was crushed in a matter of words. _Not. Cool._

“Goodbye, fair maiden of Floral Park!” Lance sang in an overly pretentious posh accent.

“You infuriate me, Lance.” Keith’s words were as blunt as a spoon cutting into a lemon and yet still managed cut deep into Lance’s heart.

“Love you too.” Lance hung up after the last jokey word escaped his mouth, only really half joking.

He pushed the back door open and strolled in casually. It didn’t take him long to change and haul his ass out to the front desk where he found a rather excited looking Shiro propped up against the counter.

“Yo man, wassup?” Lance slid across the floor, mirroring Shiro’s casual pose. Two-toned strands swished as the older man’s head turned to the newly-arrived boy.

“Ah, Lance, you’re here. How are you doing?” He said in his ever-soothing, calm voice.

“Honestly? Shiro, I’m fucking fed up, drained, done, tormented, full of regret and yet I’m also happier than I’ve ever been…” Lance ran his hands up and down his face, squishing and moving his tired skin.

“Oh? Let me guess, that stupid bet from last Tuesday?”

“Ding, Ding, Ding! We have a winner!!” Lance groaned as he buried the rest of his face in his hands. Shiro wore a slight _‘well, that teaches you, doesn’t it?’_ smirk.

“So? What’s happened with your Keith kid then?” Shiro asked, staring at Lance’s uncharacteristic stress.

“Well, turns out Keith’s had a lot of childhood trauma and has a phobia of practically everything and is so precious and delicate that if he EVER finds out about the bet, I’m either dead because he’s super fucking vicious and totally adorable at the same time or I break him even more and I don’t know if _I_ can go on knowing I broke him down even more. He trusts me, like he said it himself.” Shiro raised a concerned eyebrow. “…I _know!_ Anyways, the guilt is eating away at me and I just want to scream or run away or die but he needs me, I made promises, I need to know he’s okay and leaving everything behind would be impossible. I just can’t lose all my pride, I know it’s stupid and not worth it if I don’t want to lose Keith, but I can’t do it! What the hell is wrong with me!?!” A frustration fist hit the counter as Lance groaned out of what must have been mostly vexation and partly the short pang of pain that shot up his hand and resonated in his wrists.

“Lance, I already know that you’re going to hate this idea but if I was you, I would just be honest with him. Sure it might not go down well at first, though, I’m sure you’ll work it out.  You seem pretty well matched- from what I’ve heard anyway- and I’m certain you can sort it out.”

“Altea. I don’t know Shiro. I-I-I like him. Like, uh, _Altea_. I don’t know, he’s just so special and interesting and funny and clever and cute and-”

“Okay, I get the idea.” Shiro cut him off with a small laugh. Lance sighed deeply, mulling over the idea, swiftly deciding that it just wouldn’t work and pushed it to the back of his mind.

“He’s just so, Shiro seriously, I can’t deal with him, he will be all cute and adorable and suddenly slag me off, laugh, then end up 5 minutes later in my arms crying his pretty eyes out and, as draining and tiring as that gets, I’m enjoy it. He even snuck out of my room this morning and let for New York without even saying goodbye and the only thing he left for me was a little crane, which is probably the cutest thing ever, besides, _well_ , him.”

“Ha! We’ve all been stupidly head over heels for someone.” Shiro gave a content smile as memories of the sweet, hesitant, shy, innocent memories of him and Allura flooded back into mind.

“I don’t know what to do, is there some sort of code of conduct to follow once a cute flirty friend leaves you origami and doesn’t say anything when they leave?”

“Umm, not that I know of… but I do have an idea!” Shiro smiled a kind-hearted smile as he praised himself on what he was about to suggest.

 

*****

The driver finally pulled into the quiet, suburban street lined with amber leaves and bare trees. Keith sighed as they pulled up beside the quaint white-panelled house, it made a nice and homely change from the harsh metal jungle he was used to back on campus.

After he thanked the driver thoroughly, he pulled the black travel case lazily up the long, grey path. Bare in mind he had forgotten to give him grandmother a prior warning to his arrival, he stood impatiently at the door in the ungodly temperature that he was now so unacclimatised to. Reluctantly, he pressed the doorbell again, fearing that, in her elderly age, his grandma’s hearing might not be as good as it once was. There was a brief period of waiting time but the door soon swung backwards revealing the thick scent of baking cakes and mint. In the doorway stood a short woman with white hair dyed a dullish blonde, grey sapphire eyes and a rushed smile.

“Uh, Keith! You’re here?! So early, with no warning?” She was confused and… _anxious?_

“Oh, yeah, _Altea_ , sorry.” Keith rubbed his arm, awkwardly staring at the floor.

“Language!” With that her anxious steak had dissipated, the back of her hand hitting his arm gently but enough for him to know that he was in the wrong.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sorry.” Keith would have usually argued that Altea wasn’t even a proper curse word but knew way better than to argue with Carolyn Kirkman herself.

“Gosh, we didn’t send you to some fancy-smancy college of science and design half way across the country for you to become a foul-mouthed heathen!” and with that, Keith pulled her into a tight hug, trying to not hit her with the dahlia bouquet still in his hand.

“I missed you too Grandma.”

She sighed with a laugh as the boy towered over her. The embrace was short, however, as he pulled away, he gave her the flowers.

“For me?”

“Of course, who else would they be for?” Keith laughed.

“Well, _I don’t know_ , you could have some secret boyfriend I don’t know about.”

“Grandma. Just because I told you I like guys doesn’t mean you have to bring it up at literally every moment possible!” Keith was flustered, he felt his cheeks heating immensely quickly as images of him and Lance came to mind.

“No, but I see an opportunity and take it, it is officially my job to embarrass the hell of you, dear grandson.”

“Thanks Grandma.” He said sarcastically.

“Do you want to freeze to death or not?”

“Okay, okay, sorry. Please may I enter your humble abode?”

“Yes you may. Now If you don’t I’m going to put these beautiful flowers my thoughtful grandson brought for me, in a vase. Go take your bags upstairs, I haven’t been in there too often, only to dust the cabinets and polish the mirrors so I don’t think I’ve moved anything.”

“Okay, thank you. See you in a bit.”

Keith’s room was smaller than he remembered, maybe he’d just grown, he couldn’t tell. The light grey walls took him back in time, the ceiling was bare without all the cranes (which he had taken to college with him) but it was still home. The walls were covered in a load of indie band posters, old photos of him and his emo friends from 4 years ago, his prized motorbike and pictures of the big competition 2 years ago as well as many concert tickets and festival wristbands. Smiling at the memories, he ran a finger down the slick side of his cherry red bass that he did kind of miss while he was away. He placed the case on the perfectly smooth grey and white bed sheets carefully, quietly enough to hear whispers echoing through the walls. Either his grandma was on the phone or she wasn’t alone and this made Keith really curious. _Who the hell was downstairs?_

In poor effort to hear better, he strolled over the door and cracked it open. _Nothing._

He crept across the upstairs corridor. _Nothing._

He ducked down at the top of the stairs. _Still nothing._

Once he finally gave in, he hopped down the stairs in a swift breeze. At first there was nothing, however, as he reached the final step, he came face to face an unexpected and unwanted person.

“I-uh-I-Keith? _Keith!?_ Keith, _oh my god you’ve grown up so much!?_ Ah- oh no- I can, I can explain.” The pain and heartbreak in their voice did nothing to Keith, he felt the anger bubbling and boiling under his skin, rising at an uncontrollably fast rate and it took all the power he could muster to supress it.

*****

“SHIRO THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE, HOW DO- WAIT!? SHIRO! STOP! SLOW DOWN!!”

“Lance, it’s seriously easy, look, just fold… here and…” Shiro’s fingers moved at an incredible speed, Lance was seriously struggling to keep up with him and that was something he was not afraid to voice.

“I GIVE UP!” Lance threw the crumpled piece of paper across the counter and threw his hands up in the air earning a long exasperated sigh from the man beside him.

“Origami really _isn’t_ your thing, is it?”

“No but Shiro it _needs_ to be my thing! I want to do this!”

“Then, can I suggest not giving up?”

Lance’s first 6 crane attempts had all been failures and it wasn’t helping that Shiro kept going on about his and Allura’s secret plans to buy the empty shop next door and turn Paladin Palace into an actual pizzeria for Alfor’s next birthday surprize. As much as Lance was interested in the subject, he had more important things to be focusing on- such as making a cute guy an origami crane (even if it took him 87 tries to get right).

In the time it took to make 14 failed cranes, Pidge, Coran and Allura had all arrived and were working hard- well, except Allura but she had joined Lance and Shiro to discuss the restaurant plans. In-between his deliveries, Lance would try to make as many cranes as he could. Shiro had informed him that it appeared that he was slowly improving which was very encouraging. It took him a long time to actually fold his first crane-like structure, but when he showed Shiro and Allura the crinkled, oddly shaped bird which only suffered minor rips, they both cheered with praise and cooed at him like proud parents. They were all mid celebration when Lance’s phone rang in his pocket. He excused himself and made his way to the staff room. When he saw Keith’s number, his brain automatically went to panic mode, _something was wrong,_ Keith knew he would be at work and Lance knew he would only call him if it was an emergency.

“Keith?”

“Lance I-I-I” Keith’s voice was shaky and his words were short. Lance’s brain went crazy, his arms ached for Keith, they wanted to hold him tight, he wanted to be able to bury him in a shower of kisses and tell him he was going to be okay.

“Keith? What’s happened?”

“S-she’s here! She was in my house.”

“Okay, okay, Keith, breathe, calm.” Lance paused trying to make sense of Keith’s frantic words by himself “Context, please?”

“Ah, ah- okay. So remember I told you about my- errm- _Mom_ …”

“The one in prison?”

“Well, she _was_ in prison, but they let her out 2 and half years ago. I haven’t seen her at all but my Grandma has and she’s forgiven her and she was here, when I got home. I was early and my mom was just casually there and I panicked, and, and, well I-erm.”

Lance cut in over Keith’s indecipherable gabbling “Altea’s sake, are you okay?!”

“I-I- don’t know… No? I just left and drove around aimlessly for an hour, I don’t know where exactly I am or how I feel but I needed to talk about it.”

There was silence between them as Lance processed the information carefully.

“Just drove around!?” Lance’s voice was panicked and scolding, and he could have sworn that he sounded like Hunk, or worse, Shiro.

“Yeah?” Keith was a little bit reluctant with his response but sighed it off.

“Drove?! Like in a car?”

He didn’t quite understand Lance’s _confusion(?)_ “No, on my bike, what? why?”

“Like pedal bike???” Still, Keith had no clue why Lance was so obsessed with interrogating him over the means of transport he had decided to use.

“No, my motorbike Lance. Altea, not going to _cycle_ some stupid feeling away.”

There was a lingering silence on the other line, so much so that Keith was beginning to get worried. “…You have a b-bike?”

 “Literally, Lance, what did I just say?!” Keith sounded agitated so Lance decided to drop the conversation entirely.

“Sorry. But are you okay?”

“You just asked me that.” Keith had raised an unnecessary eyebrow as he heard the unease in Lance’s voice.

“I know, I’m worried, I’ll keeping asking until I get the answer I want.”

“It’s great to hear your voice. After all this shit, I mean- it’s- uh… _nice_ ”

 _Nice!?_ Keith mentally clawed at his own face, _it wasn’t just nice, it was reassuring and comforting and the only thing that made Keith know he was going to be okay._ It was the kind of annoying yet frantically peaceful voice he had come to know and love.

“Still not what I’m looking for…”

“Fuck you.”

“Nope, that’s not it, still looking.”

“Lance, you are, in fact, a massive asshat sometimes.”

“Yes…and?”

“I hate you.”

“aaaannnnnddddd?” Keith considered his options and decided keeping up Lance’s pointless game was, well, _pointless._

“I’m fed up and heading home. I’m over it.”

“Fucking finally. Though you’d keep that up all day.” Lance gave a sigh of relief and a sharp laugh that prickled down the phone.

“I could if I wanted too but I’d rather you just shut up for 2 seconds.”

Lance couldn’t tell if Keith was joking or not, this scared him, _did Keith really think he was annoying?_

“…Oh… I-I’m sorry…” Lance mumbled disheartenedly, trying not to let the emotions welling up in his head escape and find their way to his heart, or worse, his eyes.

“Lance? I’m just kidding, okay?” Keith seemed anxious and apologetic and something about that seemed to relax Lance.

“Oh.” He gave an off laugh in response.

“Thanks for picking up.” Keith gave a sharp exhale that made Lance’s speaker crackle “I’m going to miss your stupid company this week, you’ve really helped me and I’m so grateful but it’s getting kind of dark now so I’m going to try and find my way home before I get stabbed in a sketchy back-alley.”

Before Lance could process what Keith had said, he had already said his goodbyes and was back in the room that felt as cold as the now-empty phone line.

“I’m guessing that was Keith, eh, lover-boy?” Lance spun around to find his short companion leaning casually against the door frame, arms crossed, grinning smugly.

“Urgh, Pidge, have you come to torment me even more?” Lance really didn’t have the emotional capacity to face Pidge at that particular moment.

“So I wonder what he’s going to _miss_ about _your stupid company_?” Pidge knew exactly what made everyone tick, so pushing people’s button’s was one of Pidge’s greatest talents- apart from maybe being an utter tech genius and self-proclaimed quick-witted slay machine in a neat-o 5”nothing package.

“Oh shut up Pidge, do you really think it’s necessary to take advantage of my mistakes.”

“I’d be a bad friend if I didn’t, that’s the only way you’ll learn, kiddo.” Pidge chirped in an over-done sickly-sweet patronizing voice.

“That’s debatable.” Lance did consider Pidge a close friend, not as close a Hunk (obviously), but Pidge was generally a nice person (well, usually)- that was until you found yourself in Pidge’s hands at Pidge’s will.

“When will you give in, Lancey-pantsy? C’monn I need my money; I’m going to make it rain like the sun’s never going to come out again!”

“You know I’m never ever going to back down from a bet Pidge, don’t waste your mind games on me, save them for Shiro- he’s the only one who your undeniable childlike innocence work on.” Lance hated this bet more than anything else in the world. It only proved how stupid, competitive and impulsive he could be. Keith was not worth a $50 bet, he was a person, he was priceless and deserved way better than Lance. Thinking about the bet made Lance realize how much of a piece of shit he really was and it drove him insane. He absolutely detested admitting his weaknesses and failures and yet his whole body ached for him to just get it over with. He also knew it would be wrong for him to take Pidge’s money; if he did win the money, it would only make him feel filthy and guilty. _Maybe he should just let Pidge win this time?_

“So be it Lancelot, have it your way, but don’t get too attached to that boy, you can’t keep a lie for the rest of your life.” Pidge took a step back, still flaring an enormously despicable grin “Toodles!” Pidge’s voice echoed as Lance found himself flipping off the empty space Pidge had left behind.

_“…Urgh, why does this have to be so difficult…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, I am so, so sorry for how long you've had to wait for chapter 10! It seems like forever, I've been so busy the last 2 weeks and I've struggled keeping to my writing schedule but, hey, I'm finally back in the swing of things, so here- have chapter 10!  
> This chapter is brought to you by the wise words of Chemma Cheese, who turned to me a week or so ago and just said "Walked into the club, yo waddup, I got a big... pizza?" that prompted a mid-lunch break Pizza Boy fangirling session.  
> Thank you again for all your support, I really appreciate it ^w^ <3 
> 
> If you want, you can come find me on Instagram (I usually post update-y things on my story when a new chapter is close):  
> https://www.instagram.com/iwritelynnesnottragedies/


	11. Chapter 11

It’s crazy how differently two people spend four days. Keith’s thanksgiving was a small and quiet affair, his mother never made another unwanted appearance, Keith and Carol enjoyed spending some peaceful time together, not having to speak excessively and just appreciating eachother’s presence. Together, they cooked each meal, painted and sketched, went for short walks around the neighbourhood and visited the graveyard a few times supplying their loved ones with beautifully arranged bouquets. Keith’s artistic flair definitely originated from Carolyn, he had always enjoyed sketching and painting (even if afterwards he grew to loathe his work), his Grandma’s beautiful floral watercolours could never be criticised- they were truly beautiful. Even now, as her withered, trembling, fingers gripped a brush, pencil or pen, the results were always as stunning as they had been before. Once over the initial shock of day one, Keith spent his alone time either on his bike or sat on his bed reading the books he had to begrudgingly leave behind, while also talking to Lance whenever they both got the chance.

Lance, on the other hand, never had a quiet moment. Between juggling his own 7 siblings, 12 cousins, 3 nieces, 2 nephews and rest of his crazily large family, his time was completely taken up with helping out around his childhood home and/or talking to or taking care of the kids or the grandparents. Whenever he could escape the pile of kids that clung to his every limb, he found the room that he shared with his 4 brothers growing up. He was the 2nd oldest of the boys, the 4th oldest child in total, this meant he got the top bunk whenever he visited- due to the fact he couldn’t actually sit up in one of the bottom bunks. When he had finished his chores and found a second to himself, he would check up on Keith and they would either text, call or video chat depending on the time and place.

A few times, a rogue family member would hear or see Lance on the phone to a mysterious boy which was brought up at supper on the Friday, when the extended family had headed home. Lance’s mother was the most curious and intrusive, his two older sisters closely behind her, asking all sorts of personal questions about them. The rest of the family stuffed their faces with leftovers from the previous night and watched a rather flustered Lance try to convince them this boy was just a friend and not some new love interest. It was only when he accidentally let his name slip that the Facebook stalking started, with that, Lance promptly left the table- ‘loss of appetite’ he argued as he ascended the stairs hastily. The teasing continued the whole weekend, even as he hugged his mother for the last time before he left, she told him to send Keith their love resulting in a huff and a violent blush from her not-so little boy.

Lance was the first too make it back home, well, not quite home as his first port of call was Keith’s dorms. The sleepy Sunday town was very quiet and, for once, some-what peaceful. Luckily, Lance could see someone sat at the concierge desk- _perfect!_

He strolled into the finely-furnished room confidently, gaping grin and wide eyes. As soon as the door was ripped open precariously, the small man behind the desk shot daggers at the boy who just swaggered into the room as if he was some sort of king. Lance immediately realized his mistake, causing him to completely freeze up and mutter multiple indecipherable apologies to the man at the counter. After the ordeal, the man remained frosty but that was, at least, something Lance could work with.

“Again, sorry about the entrance, uh, right so I need to deliver something to one of the residents here.” Lance pulled something out of his bag and sneakily placed it in front of him as if it was some sort or awkward drug deal. The man picked it up and examined it carefully. “Would you mind putting this in dorm 80’s post for me?”

“I’ll see what I can do…” the man replied unenthusiastically, turning away to get on with his work as Lance’s thanks echoed across the spacious room. In a flash, Lance was gone, bag in hand, wandering down the street.

The temperature in the air had dropped considerably since he had left and it finally felt like winter again. Lance took the usual scenic route through the now barren park, passing all the exposed trees and feeling the frosty leaves and gravel crunching beneath his feet. Everything was a-wash with a kind of orange glint from the lazy sun that shimmered just beyond the tall builders that towered up into the warm-looking sky.

It wasn’t long before Lance’s familiarly rough-looking complex came into view and, boy, did it feel like home- or so he thought anyway. 

Practically kicking the door open, Lance tossed his small suitcase onto the heap of washing on the floor by the foot of his bed, however, he was mortified to discover that there was no usual untidy pile of clothes on the floor as the suitcase came into contact with the hardboard floor, creating an almighty crash that woke up nearly the entire building.

“HUNK!?” Lance whisper-shouted out into the still relatively dark room.

“Altea’s sake, bro what the actual hell, it’s like 7am on a Sunday?” Hunk muttered from his bed

“WHERE IS THE MESS?”

“What? Lance, it’s far too early to be dealing with your-”

“Hunk, what did you do? O-o-our organised mess, our comforting nest, what did you do to it!?!”

Hunk turned on a side lamp, drowning the room in a dim yellow light. What Lance saw could have given him a heart attack for certain. Clean, the whole room was completely spotless, even the suspicious stack of large cardboard boxes were in a tidy pile.

“ _I_ did nothing. Shay came in here while we were away and cleaned everything- including all of your gross-ass food wrappers that were probably growing like at least 6 types of dangerous mould which probably could have killed us in our sleep at some point if we just left it as trash mountain. Yesterday when I came home I helped her clean the rest of it and put your washing away. Also, we finally found those Mario boxers you lost like last month-”

“Hunk!” Lance sank onto his bed unsure of what his emotions were doing. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, what? Lance? All we did was clean, I don’t under-”

“Hunk, I know you’re hiding something, why are you doing this suddenly? It’s been this messy since the first week, why have you changed our comfortable unclean crib out of the blue!?”

“Oh Altea, okay, I was trying to keep this low-key and wait for the right moment but, umm, well… Shay asked me if I wanted to move in with her, at first I was like oh no I can’t do that Lance is my bro I can’t leave him. I guess she just talked me into it—I just couldn’t say no. I-I’m sorry Lance. Are we still cool?”

Lance stared at Hunk for a good moment, utterly stunned and oddly heart broken. How could his best bro from day one, the one who he had shared many-a movie marathon with (well, along with Pidge), the one who always stole his cereal, the one who encouraged him and scolded him, ever leave him like this.

“Look, Lance, I’m sorry, I really am, you’re an awesome guy and one of the best friend’s I’ve ever had but Shay needs me around too and I just can’t let her down, you know she’s had it rough lately. I’ve already gave in my leaving note and paid the rent until the end of December but I’m moving as soon as I can.”

Panic hit Lance like a ton of bricks, _the money_ , there was no way in hell he could ever afford the rent on his own.

“I’ll still come round and visit, all the time if you want, we can still go out together and get McDonalds for breakfast and have movie nights with Pidge and Shiro and Allura- maybe even your friend Keith if you want to invite him! I’m only moving down a block so I’ll still be around.”

Lance wasn’t sure what to say or do, Hunk was a sweetheart and he knew that Shay meant the world to him and that he meant no harm to Lance whatsoever, but he still felt hurt.

“Okay, I understand. It’s alright buddy, it’s just, well, I need to figure some stuff out but I’ll cope.”

Hunk’s anxious frown dwindled into a relieved smile. “Aw, thank you Lance, I hate boosting your ego but you’re a really amazing friend. Thank you.”  Lance weakly managed to fake a smile back. “Me and Shay are going to go get pancakes in an hour, wanna tag along?”

“Umm, thanks but no thanks, I think I need to get some rest before I start planning what comes next.”

“Okay, well I hope you sleep well. Also, before you go, my mom made us cookies, they’re in the fridge she told me to say hi from her.”

“God, I love your mom, man.” Hunk laughed at the Lance who just climbed back into his bed.

 

*****

**Hey, I just got back to my dorm, wanna grab a coffee?**

**-Keithikins ;3 9:47am**

**Uh, thanks but I’m not really feeling up to it rn…**

**-Dat Pizza Boi 9:50am**

**Oh no, are you okay?**

**-Keithikins ;3 9:50am**

**Not really tbh. Long story.**

**-Dat Pizza Boi 9:52am**

**Hang on I’ll brb.**

**-Keithikins ;3 9:56am**

*****

Keith had already unpacked his clothes and found a place to put his bass- that he may or may not have decided to not leave behind this time- in the wardrobe. Once his room was sorted again, he went downstairs to collect his post for the week. He only had 3 letters, 2 boring college forms and 1 from his mother, with the same stupid pink envelope and loopy signature. He stuffed the post in his pocket with a small sniffle.

Suddenly a familiar, hoarse voice rang out “80! Number 80! Kirkman!”

“Huh? Bertram?” Keith span around and made eye contact with a sly looking man in a big green jumper.

“Kirkman, you’re apartment 80 aren’t you?” The portly, stern-looking man flashed a rather uncharacteristic smirk in Keith’s direction.

Keith’s eyebrow twitched under his thick hair, unsure what his dorm number had to do with anything, well, except his dorm. “Uh, yes?”

“Ahh, well...” The man began, clearing his throat with a gruff grunt “...I believe I have something for you.”

*****

 

The phone connected to the keypad downstairs rang harshly, drilling into Lance’s already fuzzy head. Despite the pain, he let it ring on, and on, and on, and on, until it stopped. Lance huffed loudly and tossed over like a stroppy baby, glad to actually regain the peace and quiet he so dearly missed. That was until the obnoxiously loud ringing started once again. Lance hauled himself up with an angry groan; his thin finger slammed onto the answer button, ready to let his sheer fury out on whoever thought it was a great idea to irritate him _even more_.

“Can you actually fuck off?!” Lance growled down the microphone before the other person could even inch a word in either way. The line was left in a stunned silence for a millisecond as Lance considered hanging up before hearing his unwanted guest out.

“…Um, uh, sorry. I was worried. But, uh, well… I’ll com-”

The distinct awkward mumbling was so familiar Lance only needed to hear one syllable drop into the fiery red-silence to feel the pang of regret singeing his stomach and burning in his throat.

“ _Fuck._ Arghh. Keith, I’m so sorry, It’s not a good day I’m so-”

“I have 3 tubs of ice cream and cocoa, let me fucking in before I drop it on your door mat, right here, right now.” Keith’s voice was strained but still relatively light-hearted which couldn’t have made Lance’s mood take a sharper U-turn.

“Keith. My god have I missed you so, so much. Door’s open.”

Everything turned silent again and Lance swam back into the comforters. Silence. Lance had been practically falling asleep when Keith essentially stormed through Lance’s door backwards, the sudden commotion causing Lance to sit back up from the soft protection his sheets provided. Keith’s flushed face flashed Lance an awkwardly apologetic smile as he slowly slumped into the room, knees unsteady from the weight of the items precariously balanced in his arms.

In a matter of seconds, the contents of Keith’s arms were being set out neatly on the desk besides the bed. “Uh, sorry to intrude on your highness, but I have returned from my travels baring many-a gift for you.”

“Keith, you sound like a pretentious drama student, please fucking stop.” Lance rolled his eyes at Keith who just gave him another breathy laugh.

“ _The lady doth protest too much, methinks._ ” Lance cocked his head, brow raised as he tried so hard to fight back a small smile blossoming into an unsure smirk. “What? Can’t take a little bit of _Hamlet_?”

Lance just sat back, comfortably leaning into the heavy head-board staring at Keith who just stood lumberingly in the middle of the now incredibly bare room.

“Anyways, it’s so clean in here all of a sudden, what the hell happened?” _Of course he would fucking bring it up, he’s the world’s biggest clean freak_. Lance let out a loud groan as his body sank all the way down back into the bed.

With a sigh, Lance’s words were muffled by the layers of sheet and pillow. “Hunk happened.”

Keith, stepped cautiously around the subject, speaking so softly that Lance’s skin could feel the raw hum of what could only be described as nervous electricity “Explanation?”

“So…” Lance pulled himself upwards, emerging from his shallow cocoon. “Long story short, I’m broke and Hunk is leaving me for his girlfriend and I can’t just pay our split rent on my own. I don’t know what I’m going to do Keith! I literally can’t afford the rent; Hunk just was like ‘Hey dude I’m gunna leav-”

Lance was all words and gestures, frantically flailing limbs and violently pulling distorted faces and Keith had heard enough, Lance’s panicked stroppiness and yet oddly adorable helplessness had gotten to his head and before his common sense could even kick in, he had already opened his mouth and mentally-unapproved words were spilling out uncontrollably.

“Well, if you really need somewhere to go-”

_Keith, what do you think you’re doing?!?_

“-I mean, like if you want to-”

_Keith, STOP._

“-You could move in-”

_What are you-!?_

“-with me.”

Silence fell across the room as Lance’s teary blue eyes locked with Keith’s dullish-indigo ones. Keith’s brain went into overdrive as the alarm consumed every last inch of his body. Neither boy moved from their spot, which only made the panic and regret bubbling in Keith’s stomach swell until he was almost certain he was going to puke if the painful nothingness continued any longer.

With a frail voice and eyes like saucers, Lance broke the stunned silence “Really?”

Keith just shuffled gawkishly, bobbing on the heels and balls of his feet, trying to fish for a reply as seamless and flowing as his previous words. “umm, yeah, sure I guess, like it’s a two-bed room so I mean, as long as it’s as clean as this I-”

“KEEEEIIIITTTTHHH-!!!!” As his eyes had been pretty focused on his intricately tied laces, Keith only really registered what was happening when he found himself stumbling backwards from the sheer force and weight suddenly slamming into him. Lance’s hug was messy and his arms were heavy and tight around Keith’s head but something about the embrace sent chills down Keith’s spine and made his chest and fingertips buzz.

As much as he hated other people, especially when it came to living with them, there was something about Lance that made him think that maybe living with someone else could be alright, maybe even bearable (or even enjoyable but that could be pushing it a bit).

Keith wasn’t sure what he felt towards Lance but he knew it made him feel safe and happy which is something he had not felt much before and also something he could get used to feeling a lot more often. So maybe having him around permanently wouldn’t be so bad, _would it?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking hell, okay, I really didn't expect this chapter too take so long but this month has been quite stressfully and I've had a massive work load lately which, when partnered with writers block (despite having the whole fic planned chapter by chapter), is not very fun when you want to be productive!!  
> I really hope that the next chapter will be up relatively soon (which it most likely will) but a big thank you for sticking around and reading, I really appreciate all the support.  
> Big thanks to Chem who constantly reminds me that stressing myself out about lack of updates is bad and I need to take it easy and also thanks to Tash for being a bean and reminding me that my writing isn't all that shitty (and I hope she is feeling even a little bit better right now).  
> I am so thankful for all your lovely comments and hope you have enjoyed this long-awaited chapter~!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy moly!  
> It has been a while hasn't it...  
> I'm so so so sorry for the delay in this chapter (ik ik i'm the worst don't remind me). I know a lot of you will be dying to read this chapter so if you're interested in why this chapter took so hecking long i'll put it at the end so that you can enjoy this long awaited update. Thank you so much for sticking around and I hope you enjoy.

December the 15 th  couldn’t have come any sooner for Lance, Hunk had moved out no little than 5 days prior and he suddenly found himself swept up in a sea of bubble wrap, polystyrene packing peanuts and brown boxes. After spending 3 all-nighters sorting and packing, sorting and packing, sorting and packing, Lance had woken up to Keith drowsily resting his surprisingly light head against his shoulder- the calm before the storm.

Never in his life did Lance ever think that anyone who seemed so cute and little could have been so bossy, controlling and frenzied as Keith Kirkman was during moving. Not only did he shout, complain and be a complete dick at all times- he didn’t even help out!

Once they actually arrived on floor 7 for the final time, Keith thanked Bertram at the door while Lance found himself a very comfy home between the piles of endless, meaningless stuff. There was a loud click from the door indicating the polite conversation was over, Lance peered past the stacked-up boxes and was greeted by an undeservingly exhausted figure slumping onto the bed opposite him.

“Altea, you’re not _tired,_ are you?!” Lance questioned, sitting up in disbelief. Keith responded with a loudly muffled groan which resonated in the bed springs of the well-used mattress. “You’re unbelievable Keith Kirkman, seriously, I don’t understand you some-” before Lance could say another word, a red cushion collided with his head, stunning him momentarily. “KEITH!? WHAT THE FU-” another pillow hurtled across the room, slapping Lance in the chest. This was proceeded by another-which Lance managed to catch with one hand and use as a shield to deter any more flying furnishings. 

Pillows shot in all directions, backwards and forwards, from bed to bed. Lance was panting and sweating as he stood on his bed (ducking ever so slightly trying not to keep hitting his head on the considerably low dorm ceiling), trying to prevent Keith from attacking him any further. Lance watched the determination and persistence showing through Keith’s smirks and giggles, he loved the way his nose crinkled when he laughed and the small creases by his eyes that made his face look like he was radiating the pure essence of happiness. The boys laughed and joked through their sleepy state, Keith clearly had lance cornered and yet Lance kept up the fight and resisted against him shouting _‘You shall not pass’_ every time a pillow found its way to Keith’s face.

The boys got lost in time completely, neither of them really remembered turning on the music but somehow it was playing very loudly as Lance danced along awkwardly on the mattress like a true born performer.

Keith felt rather uncomfortable yet intrigued as Lance’s scarily good Britney Spears impression made him slightly concerned. From the way Lance was dancing around like a slutty giraffe, Keith was certain that Lance picked the wrong career choice, for sure. Lance, by this point, had migrated to Keith’s spinning desk chair and Keith himself had collapsed onto Lance’s bed in hysterics. Lance’s rendition of ‘Toxic’ had definitely been imprinted in Keith’s mind forever and not even the strongest form of eye bleach could get rid of the things he had witnessed.

“Lance..?” Keith tried to interrupt the performance, receiving only an eye roll as Lance reclined the violently spinning chair with his legs waving around in the air. “…You realize that my chair will have serious PTSD for this experience, in fact, I’m pretty sure it’ll get a restraining order against you. What if my chair needs counselling!? You’ve been here less than 24 hours and you’re already violating and corrupting my furniture!”

The spinning stopped abruptly as Lance sat up on the backwards chair. The two held eye contact for a brief moment as Lance grinned devilishly. He leaned forward on the back on the chair, reclining it slowly, so he matched the level of the boy leaning against the bed frame smirking with an iniquitous sparkle in his eyes. 

_‘I'm addicted to you  
Don't you know that you're toxic?’ _

They gravitated closer and closer, as if they were magnets. The hairs on the back of Keith’s neck stood up all at once and he felt his body filling with warmth, pooling in his skin, causing hundreds of goosebumps to prickle. Lance’s face was lit up with expression as he mouthed the words perfectly in time.

‘Intoxicate me now  
With your lovin' now  
I think I'm ready now’

Lance’s feet pressed against the bed frame firmly, as, in one swift motion, he pushed off sending the chair spinning back towards the desk with a loud crash.  
Keith disconnected Lance’s phone from the speakers, earning a groan from a rather Sulky Lance. Picking up his own phone, Keith checked the time to see how long they had been messing around.

“Holy fuck”

“What?”

“It’s 11:30 already”

Lance span back round to stare at Keith, who had sat back on his bed. “Really? How long have we been here?”

“Like 4 hours.”

“Wow…” Lance smirked “Well, I better get some rest considering I have work tomorrow.” He pulled back his covers and under them while Keith darted around the room switching off the lights and getting himself ready.

“Yeah.” Keith slipped into his own bed with a small smile tugging on his lips as he pulled the soft covers over his head, letting the reams of fabric envelop him. An unusually soft voice echoed across the room, clear as a bell, full of life and giddy with excitement.

“Well g’night, roomie.” 

“Goodnight, dipshit.” 

 

*****

 

Light pooled into the room and the warm, familiar smell of coffee made Lance’s weary nose twitch. He had never expected to feel as cosy or comfortable in any bed besides his own back home, but this, this soft yet slowly sinking mattress was some serious competition. 

His body, still craving the covers, quickly shook the duvet off, allowing the deeply rich scent take over his senses. With a yawn and a quick stretch over to the counter, Lance patted around for his phone and swiped the mug from the side. 

With one swift swoop, the coffee began to escape the blue porcelain mug and find its way into Lance’s system, like a kick in the back. 

The cardboard-castle, which was their precariously placed box mountain range, was oddly quiet as Keith seemed to be strangely absent from the scene. After running his hands through the mess that was his matted morning mane, he eventually saw a message sent from Keith 24 minutes prior.

 

**Hey I’m having breakfast with someone today I’ll be back later to start unpacking.**

  **-Keithikins ;3 9:57am**

**OK see u later- also thanks for the coffee bby ;))**

**-Dead memes 10:22am**

**God never say that again.**

**-Keithikins ;3 10:24am**

**I *was* being ironic but why not bby, does bby make you uncomfortable.**

**-Dead memes 10:25am**

**Never EVER talk to me again.**

**-Keithikins ;3 10:25am**

 

**_-Dead memes changed the nickname for Keith to Bby (_ ** **_͡_ ** **_°_ ** **_͜ʖ_ ** **_͡_ ** **_°) x –_ **

**STOP**

**-Bby (** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°) x 10:26am**

**WHY IS IT THAT YOU MAKE ME SO FUCKING UNCOMFORTABLE.**

**-Bby (** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°) x 10:27am**

**Because you love it really mullet prince bbykins**

**-Dead memes 10:27am**

**1\. I really DON’T. 2) STOP 3) Are you fucking 5 years old?? 4) Don’t you dare change it again**

**-Bby (** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°) x 10:28am**

**_-Dead memes changed the nickname for Keith to mullet prince bbykins_ ** **(** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°) _–_ **

**I’m leaving.**

**-mullet prince bbykins** **(** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°)** **10:28am**

**********

Keith sighed loudly as he slouched back against the padded, brown interior of the cosy, dimly-lit booth. His usual seat- alone and in the corner.

“You good?” a bubbly voice punctuated with a quiet yet hearty giggle cut Keith’s slumped sulkiness like a knife in soft butter. The girl slid into the chair opposite Keith effortlessly, two green teas in hand and god-like silvery hair that glinted an almost violet hue, falling equally as languorously in loose ringlets that cascaded over her exposed, sun-kissed shoulders.

“Yeah, I’m fine Allura.” He returned as he took one of the shaking teas that she seemed to be juggling hazardously. Flashing him a sly grin he knew all too well, she leaned in closer mischievously.

“Oh really? You seem to have the mopey boy face.”

“I do not.”

“You totally do!” Keith took a large sip of the tea, making sure to give Allura a large eye roll in the process. “That tea, spill it, what’s going on Mr Mysterious McSulkyface.”

“Oh my actual god! What’s with the nicknames all of a sudden. Seriously!”

“Huh?” Allura tilted her head, causing a landslide of still perfectly in-tact curls. “Is this what’s crawled up your ass and caused your saltiness?”

“No, no it’s just my roommate, I’m not salty, not really. Sometimes he’s just… Just… I don’t know, a bit much? Apart from that he means well I guess…” Keith shrugged, staring intently into the drink as if it would answer all the questions life held. Right as Keith had settled in the silent solitude between them, Allura’s hands slammed on the table top causing a miniature earthquake that created rapid and jagged ripples in the beverages.

“Holdup?? You? Have a roommate? You never told me!? Keith what the fuck!? When the hell did this happen!?!”

“Sheesh, It’s no big deal really-”

“KEITH YOU’RE LITERALLY THE MOST ANTISOCIAL GUY I KNOW HOW-” a suffocating silence deafened the quaint coffee shop as Allura sat back down, a red dusting of apologetic embarrassment spreading across her cheeks. Before she returned to her place, she cleared her throat and gave a weak smile “Well what I’m saying is why did you get a roommate when you literally like ‘Oh well I’m Keith and I’m sulky and lonely and I don’t want friends because I’m totally an emo teenager’”

“-I’m not quite-”

“-shh yes you are. Who is this boy? Is he your boyfriend? Who is he? Where is he from? What does he study? Do I know him?”

“A guy I met one night, he’s funny he made me laugh when I didn’t think I could ever feel the least bit happy at all ever. No, he is not. I’m not giving that away. That’s for you to find out or like I don’t know Facebook stalk or whatever. He’s in my art studies, astrophysics and engineering so you won’t know him.”

“Damn.” She said leaning back, letting the booth gently push against her. “Why can’t these suspicious boys you totally have the hots for ever be in our English class??” Keith averted his eyes hoping that she wouldn’t notice the uncontrollable scarlet flooding his face (she totally did notice). However, what he didn’t notice was the glimmer in her eyes as Allura’s thoughts fell into place and she quite quickly began to piece everything together.

“Fuck.You.Allura.” he scoffed violently “What if I mentioned the fact I still haven’t met your anonymous boyfriend, what was his name, _Shirtless? Sandwich?_ ”

“ _Shiro._ ” She corrected him with a glare. “His name is Shiro and you haven’t met him because you’re too lazy to stalk us and you’re probably going to tell him a load of things to scare him off.”

“Allura we’ve been friends since I was like thirteen, that’s- what?- six years now! You’re almost twenty-one and you don’t even trust me enough to let me have a casual conversation with your probable husband.”

“Jesus Christ, we’ve been dating for 3 months Keith! Just because your lonely gay-ass is eager for some forever-dick doesn’t mean I’m ready to settle down with any old person who waltzes into my life! I’m a free woman.”

“Well, I am a free woman too! I demand my free woman rights! That means I should be allowed to meet and assess your current lover to deem him suitable”

“Fine.” Allura sighed deeply, weaving a piece of hair through her skinny fingers. “Get your coat, come with me and we’ll go see him at work.”

*****

After what took what felt like an excessively long amount of time of walking through various winding back roads, Allura dragged Keith to the back entrance of what appeared to be a fast food restaurant. Said restaurant had not yet been made known to Keith and he still followed like a lost puppy.

“Remember when you moved here and I asked whether you wanted my dad to get you a job?” Allura smiled cheerfully as Keith nodded “Well, this is the place…”

With a small push, she forced the dusty grey door open, filling the frozen outside air with the immediate aroma of melted cheese and a bakery in the morning. “Welcome to Paladin Palace Pizza HQ!”

Keith’s stomach dropped. That name was familiar. Too familiar. Thoughts of the soon imminent encounter with Lance and Allura made him want to turn around and dry heave out of sheer anxiety and awkwardness that had all at once slapped him in the face with the cruel irony of the situation.

“Oi! We’re cooking in here! Altea’s sake will you close the quiznaking door!?” an echoed voice travelled down the corridor, causing Allura to sweep Keith through the threshold before he could escape the oncoming scenario. Once she shut the door briskly, Keith felt as if he had come face to face with a car in a head-on collision- there was no escaping his tragic fate. Closing his eyes briefly, he clung to the girl as she lead him painfully and slowly past the staff room. Down the hallway. Past the Kitchen. Down the hallway. Walking for what could have been an agonizing decade until they reached the final door. Allura’s smiling face was the last thing Keith saw before pressing forwards into the unknown.

“Hey Shiro, hey everyone, I brought this little shit, he’s a miserable git but he’s a cool miserable git.”

“Oh, hello-!” The tall man with a kind smile, presumably the ‘Shiro' guy, began in a very friendly and welcoming manner; alas, he could not get a word edgeways as the almost equally as tall boy stumbled forward from the wall in what seemed like complete shock.

“KEITH!?” Lance exclaimed with no real purpose or intent, just pure confusion.

“Hi.” Keith shrugged nonchalantly as his inner panic ate away at every sane thought he ever had. At the very moment, Keith was definite that he was probably going to throw up that green tea from earlier, but instead a guy sat beside Lance did probably what could have been the best spit-take Keith had ever seen.

“Keith!? _The Keith_ , Keith?!?” He said as he wiped the side of his gaping mouth with his long sleeved yellow under-shirt. Lance gave him a stony look and the guy looked even more bashful. Keith recognized him from their engineering and astrophysics classes. His name was something like Hank or Hunk and all semester he had been giving Keith a run for his money in engineering, Keith knew he was good but never really took interest in the other people in the class and their progress.

“ _The Keith?”_ Allura looked at Keith and everything suddenly made sense. _“YOU’RE THE KEITH!?”_

“Umm…” Keith looked around at the room full of people who could quite possibly know his entire life without him knowing “According to this… _Yes?_ ” Lance glared at Keith despite him not knowing what the hell was happening. Bloody Lance causing a scene. Like usual.

“Your roommate is Lance!? Your roommate who you refused to tell me about was LANCE MCCLAIN THIS ENTIRE TIME!?”

“You’ve known I had a roommate for approximately 40 minutes!”

“Shut up Keith! Wait!? He refused to tell you who I was!”

“Wait, so one minute its _‘Keith this, Keith that’_ now I’m being told to _shut up_!?! What the hell is happening? I’m so confused…”

Allura and Lance continued over Keith as if his voice was suddenly on mute.

“YES! HE’S SO SECRETIVE I’VE KNOWN HIM FOREVER!”

“Six years…That’s not forev-”

“Seriously? And you didn’t know this entire time!?”

“I never thought it was _that_ Keith!”

“What Keith? Wait what!? Allura!? Lance?? What is-”

 “Lance!! Oh my god! I’ve been so stupid! How did I not realize!?” Allura began to laugh like a maniac as Lance continued to stutter over himself as he was grasping the entire situation.

“How the hell have you two known each other that long and I never knew?”

“Yo guys, I’m still in the room”

“We met through the website SpacePage like six years ago, we’ve been talking since! Like he messaged me because we had the same theme and we became good friends I guess. Despite the fact he lived all the way in New York, we met a few times in holidays but in our exam years we grew more and more apart until he messaged me out of the blue saying he was moving here to study. Then we were put in the same English class and we’re close again but this time in distance. I had the status of being his _‘only friend’_ but you came along and mucked that up McClain!”

“How didn’t you know he was _the Keith_?”

“Oh I don’t know- maybe it’s because he LITERALLY REFUSES TO TALK TO EVERYONE I TRY AND INTRODUCE HIM TO!”

“YOU TWO!” Shiro’s voice rang out in the room that was pretty empty except from the festively seasonal fairy lights, a counter and the 5-people gathered inside it.

“What’s going??” An inquisitive voice piped up out of nowhere as the door slowly creaked open from behind the commotion.

“PidGE- OH-! HI!” Lance practically stumbled physically and verbally in tandem, trying to façade it with a gaping toothy grin of what could have been delight or dismay (probably the latter more so) “This is- uh- Keith...?”

“Keith?”

“ _Keith._ ”

“ _Keith_ Keith!?”  Pidge studied the red-nosed, obsidian haired boy who stood stock still in the corner completely overwhelmed and confused by the whole ordeal.

“Hi.” Keith responded through the thick scarf that was messily draped across his frame.

Jaw dropping, Pidge recognized the familiar, grease stained face “You’re Keith from engineering?!”

“I am?” Keith shrugged, not making sense of what it all meant but going along with it anyway.

“Yeah you topped the class, I was below you, Pidge?” Keith’s face was still vacant, with a sigh Pidge continued “Pidge Gunderson, I sit like 4 rows behind you” Keith’s head reluctantly tilted with a sheepish grin.

“Ah yeah…” He had no clue who the kid way but pretended to go along with it to try and avoid more awkward experiences.  During this time, the attention of this Pidge character had drastically moved.

“LANCE!” The oblivious boy, who had relaxed into the support of the counter-top was suddenly jolted back into the conversation.

“Y-yes?” Flinching, Lance could not quite tell what horrific thing Pidge would come out with. _What if Pidge mentioned the bet..?_

_He would be done for…_

“Why didn’t you introduce me to your roommate sooner!?” with an extended arm and a grin, Pidge’s hand was thrust upon Keith’s and the pair shook politely. “Gee, Lance sure has mentioned so much about you, I’m glad we could finally meet in person.” With that, Pidge retracted their hand in order to readjust their glasses subconsciously. 

“R-really?” Keith practically squeaked, throwing a flushed glance at the equally as flustered Lance who immediately shifted his view from the captivating boy.

“Actually,” Shiro added with a small smile “He never stops going on about you-” Shiro’s smug comment was cut short by a thoroughly embarrassed reflex, which caused Lance to almost hit him square in the face.

“You seem like a nice guy, if you’re good enough for Lancey-Pants, my best bro, you’re pretty much a bro already” The other added, taking a step towards the new face.

“Me? A nice guy? Ha! I have no clue what Lance has been saying but I’m not sure he’s got it _quite_ right.”

“Ha, you’re funny _Keith_ Keith, I like you, the name’s Hunk”

_“Knew it”_ Keith mumbled under his breath, impressed that he actually remembered this guy’s name (nearly). However, as he was taking in the moment, Hunk pulled him into a hug. Keith still thought this form of human contact was foreign and unnecessary but there was something about the warmth and friendliness the guy gave off that made him feel unnerved and relieved in the weirdest way possible- maybe it was the fact he smelt like freshly baked bread and cheese, he couldn’t quite tell.

“Well, I better get back to Coran in the kitchen before we get flooded with orders” Hunk smiled in a way that could melt butter, and the hearts of all the neighbourhood mothers. A malicious smirk spread across Keith’s face as he turned back to Lance.

“Lancey-Pants, hey? That’s a new one… I’m feeling like your contact name needs a change…”

“Don’t you-!” Lance’s objection was in vain as Keith had already pulled out his phone and ferociously began typing “… _Quiznak_ ”

Shiro, who had been sat watching the affair contently decided to speak. “So Allura, if you don’t mind, I have some important secret business concerning the new building project to talk to you about so I’m going to take my break now so that we can get going. Sorry guys, Lance you can man the counter, Pidge get back to work and you can see your friend after your shifts.”

“Keith, you said you needed to go to the library, right? Me and Shiro can drop you on our way.”

“Oh! Right, yeah, cool thanks- I’ll see you back at the dorm Lance, nice to meet you Pidge.”

*****

After the group bid their goodbyes, Shiro, Allura and Keith faced the frozen December daytime. The absence of glistening, green dressing the pathways was still unfamiliar to Keith as the twisted and tangled branches stretched in all interlocking directions as if pulling the passers-by towards them. Standing behind the couple on the sidewalk, Keith observed the way Allura’s ghostly hair shimmered in the streaky beams of light, cascading through the tree’s bare claws. Shiro acted like a wall, as the unforgiving wind dared not to touch anything in his shadow, hence Keith’s full trust in his safety, praying that for once his ruddy nose would not bare the results of his unnecessary beating. The entire trip, Shiro and Allura had been excitedly gossiping back and forth about the new pizzeria extension but Keith had been too engrossed in the methodical movement of their feet to pay attention or get involved.

Once they reached the library, Keith had barely even realized as he waved the pair off into the distance. Inside, he found the solace in the silence as he pulled out his heavy textbook, dropping it carefully on the desk. During its quick descent, a flash of red paper escaped the pages and landed delicately on the floor. With curiosity, Keith bent in his chair to pick up the well-known shaped object. He laughed. 

The messily folded and refolded crane showed signs of frustration and wear as it’s craftsman had clearly not perfected their art yet. Examining the fascinating piece, Keith discovered a note on the wing.

_“Sorry if I can be a bit of an ass, I really appreciate all you do for me.”_

The quirky and heavy handed script could have only belonged to one person. The person who made Keith’s heart race just thinking about his face, his smile, his laugh, his eyes.

**Hey Lance?**

**-mullet prince bbykins** **(** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°) 3:52pm**

**Hey**

**-mullet prince bbykins** **(** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°) 4:02pm**

**Heyyyyyyyy**

**-mullet prince bbykins** **(** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°) 4:02pm**

**Hey Lance**

**-mullet prince bbykins** **(** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°) 4:03pm**

**Yeah?**

**-Lancey Pants 4:19pm**

**You’re a nerd**

**\- mullet prince bbykins** **(** **͡** **°** **͜ʖ** **͡** **°) 4:20pm**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now that you've had your fic fix, time for me to do my explaining- as promised.  
> As some of you may know, I am currently in my exam year so since late November I've had to be focusing of my studying (unfortunately) so that I can do well in these exams. For the last few months I have been writing this chapter in short bursts but balancing my writing and my school work is nearly impossible and I hate it. As of now I'm about to enter exam season *yikes* and I'm pretty stressed and nervous. As you can hopefully understand I will be continuing this kind of break until my last exam on the 16th of June. After that I'm going to try and update as consistently as I can over the summer so I hope you're prepared.  
> In the time I've been away a few significant events have happened and I feel like I need to bring these up:  
> -Firstly, I know previously I have mentioned keeping you updated through my Instagram especially on my story. Well, back I early December I broke my phone and am using a phone that can only support the older version of Instagram so that means I cannot access my DMs or post on my story. This means that if you have tried to contact me on their I am so so sorry that I have not replied but when I do get my new phone next month I will be responding again.  
> -Voltron season two, holy moly, okay, so I HAD to bring this up (even if I missed the hype) I don't have anything to say in particular except it happened and It fucked me up.  
> -So I kinda possibly have a new beta? As i'm sure some of you might have seen back a while ago i co-authored a fic with my good friend faery_lites on a skype call one night, well she is my current beta (who has a seemingly easy job the rate i write things) but in all seriousness she is amazing and i love her to bits-mainly because she is quite possibly my girlfriend but also because she is a very lovely person- you should definitely check her out because she has possibly one of the best klance fics written by a very not sober person i have ever had the chance to read. Anyway I could write about her all night but I'm not sure you all want to hear me waffle about how great she is and about how cute everything is, so you can just take my word for it that this shit is indeed fic worthy. (also you have her to blame/thank for the use of Toxic in this chapter, it was her choice)  
> I actually have no clue if you're interested in this updatey bit but if you're reading this now, I am so glad you've stuck around, I love you all, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter and thank you for all your support over time.  
> My only aim is to continue to deliver quality, relatively lengthy chapters that I am happy with so if chapters take a little longer it is not because I am bored or fed up, it is because I'm slowly using my time to write something worth publishing and I really do hope that you're not too angry that it has been so long.  
> See you next update, have a good day! ^w^


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been a while...

It had genuinely felt as though someone had attached weights to Keith’s eyelids as he found himself slowly craving the bitter taste of a strong coffee. As he tried to sit upright, pages of the book that he had supposedly been ‘studying’ from clung to his cheeks. The dim yellow lighting of the booth flickered slightly, pooling on the table casting jagged shadows across the room. By this time, he had completely lost track of exactly when it was; all he knew was that it must have been late as the outside of the windows was pitch black.

His fatigue forced him to toss the books back into his bag with little thought. Once he got up, he turned back and saw the scruffy red bird on the floor; with haste, he scooped it up and put it in the pocket of his jeans.

Back outside the harsh wind scratched against his skin as he stuffed his hands in the relatively small pockets of his leather jacket.  Above him, he lost his thoughts in the night sky, picking out each constellation. 

The stars.

There was something peacefully nostalgic about the stars. To Keith, the stars were the only thing that really reminded him of his dad in a way that was okay. Usually he hated bringing him up, however, he could never hide from the stars. 

He must have been about 5, but it was a scorching summer night and he didn’t remember why they had left but the vivid memory of his father driving the old red pickup that he loved almost as much as Keith, the way he smiled in the moonlight, his stubbled chin was rigid as his eyes gleamed with life and hope, as they drove without purpose or reason out of the city, seemed to be burned into his memory. Keith sat in the passenger seat taking in the situation as Steve drove, an old Aerosmith CD playing, wind battering the sides of the truck as it sped down the empty highway. When they finally stopped, Keith’s dad had taken the reluctant boy’s hand, guiding him through the open fields. The lack of light pollution had exposed the night sky in all its beauty. The cliff they stood on could have been the top of the world for all Keith knew. As well as the sleeping city still visible in the distance behind them, beneath the precipice, green-blue waves moved rhythmically out toward the never ending horizon.

The stars always reminded him of that night. Even though he was usually skeptical of life after death, he often thought that maybe his dad was out there with the stars, somewhere far off. 

It was in no time before Keith reached the apartment complex, unaware of this as the haunting memories danced around his brain to the point of concentration loss. Like clockwork, he navigated the corridors and stairwells up until he reached the door marked 80 on the 7 th floor. He considerately pushed the door open expecting to find Lance asleep in the darkness. What Keith was not expecting was his roommate to be standing at the foot of _his_ wardrobe grasping a shoebox that Keith himself rarely even dared to think about, let alone open.

Without thinking, Keith was already speaking,

“What the fuck are you doing?!” immediately Lance jumped sending letters tumbling to the floor. “Lance what the fuck!”

“I was just-”

Before the boy could speak, Keith had already made his way to Lance’s side, shaking with pure anger.

“YOU’VE OPENED THEM?!” Keith snatched the box from Lance viciously.

 “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know… I found the box, I was curious, I thought you had a secret girlfriend and I wanted to tease you about it, I was only going to read one (for blackmail purposes) but I was confused to I just-”

“Lance! I can’t believe you!” His voice wavered and he could hardly hide his frustration and seething fury “Firstly, that shit is private, second, I’ve not even read them, thirdly they’re not yours why the fuck did you think I’d be okay with you snooping through my fucking stuff without permission?!”

“I-I didn’t know that she, your mother, that she really-”

“Stop it, don’t even call her that. You don’t even know her! You don’t even know me! Just stop okay? I don’t want to hear it,” Keith moved backwards, cradling the box and its unsavory contents. “She ruined my life and I don’t care what pitiful excuses she wants to cover her tracks with. She’s not part of my life and never will be. You don’t understand what she did.”

Lance hesitated, stumbling to find the right words

“I mean I know bits…” instantly, Lance regretted his response as he noticed the fire in Keith’s eyes burn far brighter and stronger than before; the blaze was so strong he was certain he could feel it scolding his chest, compressing in a way he was used too accompanied by a feeling that he wasn’t as familiar with.

“But you shouldn’t! It’s not your place, you shouldn’t even get involved.” Keith’s voice dwindled, resonating viciously through the paper-thin walls, fiercely quiet and collected with brows knitted together and lips pursed in the coldest, harshest frown. “Fuck it, I’m going. Fuck you, man.”

Keith turned his back. In a panic, Lance lurched forwards, grabbing the boys arm as it swung to his side.

“Stop! Wait! Keith, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was confused, _I am_ confused- still.”

“Get off me.” Without a response, Lance dropped his arm, allowing Keith to turn and face him once more.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s understandable. Likewise, if you don’t want me to mention what the letters say I’ll try my hardest not to. I promise.”

“No. I don’t want you to know when I don’t. I don’t know… it just feels kind of… wrong?” Keith’s feet suddenly became his focal view point as he shifted his weight between his legs.

“A-are you sure you want to do that? It’s just you didn’t seen too keen earlier, it’s highly personal and if you’re not ready then I’m not going to for-”

“It’s okay” Keith picked up the first pink envelope, he knew it was the first, it looked the oldest- with its tattered sides and eroded corners- the pink colour significantly lighter than the few others.

“Do you want me to go?” Lance began as he took a step forward.

“No.” Keith replied without delay “No, you already know. I’d rather not be alone, just in case I get so angry I start throwing items I’d much rather keep unbroken.” Lance nodded, as Keith perched on the end of his bed. Within seconds, Lance had joined him, watching Keith toss the letter between his pale fingers.

Trembling, Keith reopened the envelope’s already broken seal revealing a hardly touched piece of delicate white paper. The white was washed with slanted, slightly smudged black ink. Without second thought, his eyes began to scan the page.

~*~

_ My dearest son, _

_ I know I haven’t seen you in a long time. I know you probably haven’t wanted to see me, speak to me or have anything to do with me for a long time anyway. Although that is a sad concept I struggle to come to terms with, I understand why you’re upset- I’d be upset too- I was a horrible mother. I was immature and broken. Even though I had my issues, that is no excuse for how I treated you, I can see that now. ~~Who am I kidding? You don’t want a sob story. You won’t care.~~ _

_ Keith, though I was an appalling mother and I am ashamed, I have spent so much time away from you, reflecting and regretting everything I’ve ever done. I was wicked and stupid. You’re my only true blood family left. If you could ever give me another chance I really wish and hope to be part of your life again someday. _

_ Now, let me explain (if you haven’t already destroyed this letter while reading), your grandfather was a very kind and loving man. In protest of the ways my family were treated during the war, your grandfather took me from my village and kept me safe until he could take me back and raise me as my own. I don’t remember much about my real home apart from the swirling red flames of every last hut catching alight and reducing to an ashy mass. As a small child, I often found myself crying to your grandfather, asking about my mother, my home ect. Even then, I could register the regret, guilt and grief hidden behind his rapidly ageing eyes. Although, his soothingly kind smile and throaty laugh would always make me smile.  _

_ I vividly remember him one night, I was about 13, where I had awoken from one of my regular nightmares, he must have heard my screams and rushed to my side. With a swipe of his calloused thumb, he wiped the tears from my cheek and I don’t know what finally made me enquire about my mother but I did. With much pain and reluctance, he described the way my own mother had sacrificed herself to try and rescue one of my sick relatives who had been trapped in a burning hut. He told me her screams and sobs still haunted him as he constantly remembered the way she thrust me into his arms and drove into the fire. He understood my nightmares because we both saw the same thing. Fire and pain. Death, sacrifice and merciless destruction. _

_ Despite this, my childhood was normal. I was quite shy so I only really had your dad as a friend. Most people thought we were weird. Stevie wasn’t like me at all really- he was talkative, open and friendly- but he sacrificed everything to make sure I was never on my own or upset. Maybe that’s why I fell in love with him? Either way, by the time I was 16 our friendship had become much more of a relationship. _

_ Even though I always felt like the odd one out in the family, I knew I wanted Stevie to always be by my side, not as a brother figure, he never really felt like a real brother to me, but more of a man I was willing to live the rest of my life with. _

_ When we went to our prom, I went this boy called Kevin who I went on a few dates with (may I add that he stood me up twice and your dad had to drive to come get me. The first time we ended up going to see the movie that Kevin and I were supposed to see and the second we spent in Stevie’s room smoking dad’s cigarettes and eating ice cream straight from the tub.) This Kevin decided to leave me on the dancefloor for an entire hour, when I went to find him he, I found him in the girl’s toilets with his tongue half way down Stacy Sander’s pathetic head cheerleader throat. Yes, I still dislike her very much. _

_ Anyway, I went to get some air on the roof overlooking the entrance when your dad spotted me from where he was sat under a tree. Before I knew it, he was next to me, with some tissues and one of his usual smiles. I’m sure you remember the kind of smile I mean. Everything was wrapped in a blanket of dusky starlight as I frustrated cried over stupid Kevin and stupid Stacy. Your father just stood in silence until I asked how he had seen me and he told me that he had had “enough of the fucking Beegees for one night thank you very much” and had been listening to his own mixtape in the grounds. I loved the way he was so laid back until it got to music he didn’t like. At that moment everything suddenly way clear, his laugh, the way his eyes shone with true care and love, his messy hair, the way his head was cocked like a little puppy. Everything felt like home. I kissed him. Thus, from that moment I knew we would be together forever. _

_ Or that’s what I thought… _

_ A year or so after, you were on your way and we both were in a lot of trouble, so much so your grandmother kicked me out of the house. Your dad didn’t have to follow me but he did, he was stupid for doing so because he never really spoke to her again. Things were tough but we coped. For 4 years we both worked multiple jobs to try and support us all, it wasn’t ideal but it worked. Well, until your dad started mentioning the army. I was livid, we argued for weeks about it, I couldn’t bare to let him go especially after all the pain his father had faced. In the end, he just up and left us. As for the next year, I slowly crawled back to your grandmother as I spent my life fearing over the well-being of her son. _

_ When the worst finally did happen, my entire life shattered around me. I was thrown back to the immaturity of my youth, without him for support I realized how broken and stupid I was. I tried to mend the hurt I felt with a string of bad decisions and disgusting actions. I took it out on you. Because I was so childish, I hurt you so much until I lost you too. _

_ I spent a lot of time thinking over my actions in rehab, I went to therapy, regretted everything I’ve ever done. However, the one thing that hurt and haunted me the most wasn’t the burning house, your grandfather’s grief, your grandparent’s disapproval, your father’s death or the medication they had me on, it was you. The way you cried out, the way I took your smile away, the fear you had in your eyes. My own mistakes had hurt you. That’s the most unacceptable thing a mother could do. I love you as much as I loved you father even if I did a horrible job of showing it. I too my pain your father gave me and forced it onto you. _

_ You know, it’s funny, I still have a small book full of pictures of you and your father. Both of your smiling faces, together. It still makes me smile. Although it tortures me to think I’ve missed you grow up and that you probably will never ever forgive me. I understand why though, in fact I don’t blame you, I felt the same way about my own mother when I was young. I wonder whether you still have his eyes? You both did have the most wonderful eyes. _

_ If you’re still reading this, I presume you won’t mind me talking about what I’ve been working on lately. After I came out of rehab, my therapist and I discussed me finding a way of helping other grief-stricken mothers so I started an online forum which then spread to a weekly support group and now were working on making it a proper charity with money and professional councillors. I’m in charge of the group and were gaining traction pretty fast. In fact, your grandmother is helping me with a bake sale this week to gain awareness. _

_ As for you Keith, Carolyn said that she couldn’t tell me much about you out of respect for your wishes but she said that you’re at college across country? That’s really amazing, I hope you’re okay. She says that you are scarily similar to me and I hope that she’s wrong for your sake. Please don’t do what I did. _

_ I’m so, so sorry for everything my dearest Keith, I love you more than anything, still, after everything. One thing my therapist told me that resonated especially was that you can never run from love and that’s what I was trying to do for so long but the tug of a mother’s love will always bring me back to you. _

_ It’s okay if you don’t ever respond to this letter, or any other letter. I just want you to have them so I can at least feel like I’ve tried. _

_ I love you very much and hope you’ve grown up to be as wonderful as your father and grandfather, _

_ Many wishes, _

_ Mom xxx _

_ P.S. I’ve attached my favourite picture of your dad, it’s very special to me but I want you to have it. I think he would have like that. He’s so handsome in it, I love his smile. I miss him. I miss you. _

_ ~*~ _

Keith’s head was heavy against Lance’s bony shoulder. During the time he had been reading, Lance had re-read every word over his shoulder, a hand tugging the focused boy closer by the waist until Lance was against the wall with Keith’s entire weight pressing into him. The dead silence in the room was so cold it seemed as if the boys had been frozen in time. Suddenly, Lance began to search for something in his blue hoodie’s pocket. This abrupt movement sent a shock through Keith’s body forced him off Lance’s chest.

“Here.” Lance said as he passed a small, roughly cut picture. “It fell out when I read it, you caught me before I could put it back.” Keith stared at the paper then back at Lance’s lopsided smile. Lance was staring back, unsure of how Keith had taken the letter.

The familiar face stared Keith straight in the face. Eyes pooling together, a slight sentimental smile pushing at his dimples. He was younger looking than Keith remembered, dark blonde hair no-longer greying, pale skin contrasting the trees behind him, eyes full of life, face flushed with what could be a rush of blood or a trace of sunburn. He was undoubtedly a very attractive man. Uncontrollable, spontaneous and driven. 

“She’s right” Lance remarked softly. Keith’s head turned in response, accidentally locking their eyes- only inches apart from one another. Hastily, he moved back, trying to ignore the dim heat throbbing in his cheeks.

“Huh?” Lance wore a sort of caring smirk that made Keith unsure whether he should be worried or oddly allured.

“You do look a lot like him. You’ve got his face, okay maybe not the nose, but like wow. You’ve got the same smile. And that mole on his jawline, you have that too. It’s crazy.”

“Well, he is my dad.” The pair shared an awkward chuckle to pass the time, all the while, Keith tossed the photograph between his fingers. “Lance?” he paused momentarily, picking up the eye contact he had dropped moments before “Will you sit here with me if I read the rest?”

“S-sure, if it’ll make you feel any better.”

“Thanks.”

*****

 

The night moved quicker than they could read and soon they both began to drift in and out on consciousness. Letters and envelopes plastered the floor and practically replaced Keith’s red duvet. Lance was the first to fall asleep, Keith shortly after with his mind firmly set on two things. 

  1. Getting in touch with Kim  
  2. Falling in love with the boy drooling on his shoulder



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the MASSIVE delay, I love you guys so much for being so patient. This year has been HECTIC. Balancing school, hobbies, friends, my lovely girlfriend, homework ect has been a task. Even though exams ended a month ago I've been caught up with trips, proms, school stuff and some other random things. Now I have a while to try and churn out some more chapters more regularly. Good thing is that there are only 3 or 4 more chapters left. Usually, I post to my Instagram story when a new chapter is about to go up so if you want to keep on top of that you can always check on @/iwritelynnesnottragedies.  
> Big thanks to Tash for editing <3
> 
> Thank you all again for all your support, understanding and patience ^w^


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